Technology Management in Holding Companies: Separate IT for Each Company or a Shared Technology Architecture?

Holding companies bring together businesses operating in different sectors and with distinct business models under one umbrella. Each company's operations, customers, processes, regulatory requirements and technology needs are inherently different.

Technology management at holding-company level therefore requires more than centralizing systems. It means considering each company's technology needs alongside the group's objectives. The fundamental question is: Which decisions should be managed at holding-company level, and which should be left to individual companies to meet their operational needs?

The Risks That Emerge Without Governance

Without this structure, group companies gradually begin making isolated investments to meet their own needs. While each investment may appear to address a valid requirement on its own, the following disadvantages can emerge across the holding company:

• Different solutions and duplicated investments for similar needs,
• Data fragmented across systems and isolated in silos,
• Reduced visibility of technology risks across the group.

Defining the Boundaries: Shared Policies and Operational Flexibility

For example, a manufacturing company's OT infrastructure, a retailer's store systems and an energy company's field technologies have different requirements. The holding company's technology structure should therefore clearly distinguish between areas governed by common standards and those specific to each company:

• Areas Requiring Shared Governance: Information security, identity and access management, data management, business continuity, technology risks, architectural principles, vendor management and investment evaluation processes.
• Areas Requiring Operational Flexibility: Sector-specific technologies that directly support the company's business activities and actual operational needs.

The central technology organization should make technology assets, critical dependencies and risks visible across the group, establishing a structure that supports management and decision-making processes.

Shared Architecture and Operational Needs

This is where enterprise technology architecture comes into play. Shared architecture is a framework that defines the principles governing how systems are positioned, how they communicate with one another and how data is managed, rather than requiring every company to use the same applications or infrastructure. This enables companies to use technologies suited to their own operations while creating a secure and sustainable ecosystem at holding-company level.

A Management Perspective on Investments

When evaluating technology investments within holding companies, technical requirements should be considered alongside total cost of ownership, security and continuity risks, integration potential and scalability. The key question in any investment decision is:

The Real Strength of Technology Management

The true value of technology management at holding-company level lies in bringing different technologies, operations and business models together into a manageable, measurable and sustainable whole. A structure in which decisions can be tracked and authority and responsibilities are clear moves technology beyond a technical operation and places it at the heart of corporate decision-making.