Call for businesses to make the most of IT

Mar 17 2009 by Rob Savage, Birmingham Post

When PCs first started replacing mainframe terminals in the early 1990s, I was directed by a very dismissive IT manager to open the boxes and “have a play”.

He didn’t foresee them being a challenge to the “serious IT” that he looked after.

Fast forward a couple of decades and it’s easy to scoff – PCs are now the ubiquitous solution to business computing. They are also the solution to a computing need many of us didn’t realise we had, and households with a number of PCs and even home networks are a common occurrence.

So it is that you can move from your office PC to your home machine and have a similar experience.

It’s not hard to see why this devalues IT for many – aren’t IT departments just “playing” with computers, like so many teenagers spend time doing at home?

Not knowing how to go about evaluating IT’s contribution is the main reason many boards of directors will avoid doing so.

It leads to the scenario where the IT department is expected to keep things running but not much more.

Any part of your business that grabs as much of your expenditure as IT should really be significantly contributing to the business.

That means IT helps you sell more, make more, be more efficient, improve quality, differentiate you from your competitors etc.

Whichever way you look at it, there should be a tangible benefit to the business.

Ultimately you may have two choices. One, bring in some professional advice that will give you a third party view of your IT. Use an independent consultant on a fixed cost arrangement and then use the results to wave at your current resource or as a job spec for a new supplier.

Two? Time to bring the mainframe terminals back.

* Rob Savage works as an independent business systems consultant. Contact him via info@robsavage.com