Taking Care of Business

Information Technology can empower a business. So, why, in many organisations is it seen as a basic service?

There are many theories. Perhaps the CEO is not a supporter of investing in technology.

Perhaps IT has over-promised and under-delivered in the past. There are many stories of over-time and over-budget ERP implementations that disrupted the business and resulted in very little business improvement (we don’t read too much of the quality implementations that have delivered value).

Perhaps also, the fact that IT is a service organisation confuses the role of IT. The IT Group supports the systems we all use, which is a challenging role. When a system or PC goes offline, end-users get frustrated and nothing short of instant restoration is seen as “quality service”.

While there are many factors like these, I believe the core issue is language. IT people speak IT.

Running an IT operation is complex, and most business managers don’t understand it. Yet, there is too little effort from IT to demystify the acronyms and explain what is going on.

Equally, IT people don’t have day-to-day exposure to the business so are not in a position to offer technology solutions. IT isn’t a magic wand, but it will add value if properly engaged.

IT needs to take the lead.

The IT group needs to lead a planning process where their activities are explained to the business, and the business challenges and drivers are explained to IT. As the IT group get closer to the detail of the business issues, the more likely it is that good solutions will emerge.

This happens in many successful organisations, and the results contribute to the success.