ON APRIL FOOLS’ Day, Intel’s employee newsletter used to feature a farcical story whose joke was that it was obviously impossible. On April 1, 1998, the headline was “Intel IT Wins an Intel Achievement Award.” Everyone in the enterprise laughed—except, of course, for the IT employees.
This happened more than two decades ago and since then a lot has changed in the way business is done and IT is used in the organizations. But for many organizations the perception for IT continues to be the same.
You can still hear the common phrases such as:
- “Why does IT cost so much?”
- “Plenty of companies succeed without spending a lot on IT.”
- “We get results a lot faster in my department when we just do all the IT ourselves.”
- “We could save a lot of money by outsourcing all our IT, and we’d get better service, too.”
Well, there could have been the situations which led to such perceptions
- may be the status quo trap – IT is a cost of doing the business.
- may be not enough oversight on the business value of IT (assuming it speaks for itself).
- may be not explaining that tactical solutions ultimately cripple the business innovation.
- may be the role trap that ‘The business’ is IT’s customer, rather than ‘We are the business’ and in it together.
While a lot needs to be done to improve the perception and collaboration between your IT and business teams, one thing is certain that your IT is a strategic weapon rather than merely a cost centre.
Inspired by and adapted on ‘real business of IT’.
Thinking Space 