How can IT add persistent value?

Picture credit: dasmart

Here is a fundamental question that each of us should ask ourselves every day: how can I add persistent value to a successful organisation?

Let’s admit it, we all know that the IT job sector is shrinking faster than you can say: “Return on Investment.”

Very few companies are recruiting technology staff at the moment and it seems that, for the foreseeable future, more and more businesses will continue to downsize, shedding many good staff in the process.

For those who wish to remain working within IT, long-term prospects may be extremely challenging, to say the least.

Perhaps, though, this situation isn’t simply due to a wider economic downturn? Perhaps we are now simply experiencing another long overdue shakeout.

That is how I see the current state of play – I think that the technology market is going through a major self-adjustment that will drive down prices and salaries, until it establishes a new equilibrium between supply and demand.

not just a blip on the radar

So let’s not fool ourselves, this is not a blip on the radar screen – it’s a fundamental change to the way our industry works.

From now on, the market for technology skills, services and products will be satisfied through radically new delivery channels, largely empowered by technology – to overcome the historical issues of cost and geography.

IT is the enabler of it’s own change

Now there’s irony for you – we are responsible for exposing ourselves to competition, by having done such a good job in the past to lay such sound foundations for communications efficiency and corporate infrastructure.

But it isn’t all just a question of new service channels and opportunities for cost-saving.

gee-wizardry won’t wash any more

The underlying challenge is that our corporate colleagues, customers and paymasters have finally woken up to the reality of technology – that IT is a tool, not a magician’s wand. And, like any other tool, the genuine value of information technology is in the skilled hands of the holder, not in the tool itself.

Furthermore, now that so many IT applications and services have become more or less commoditised and widely available, the balance of technology power has irreversibly swung away from the hands of the “craftsman/ technician” and firmly towards the commercial managers of the business process.

all about value

The sooner we all recognise this new fact of life, the better – because then we will have far more chance of remaining relevant to our employers.

And there is only one way for us to be sure of being relevant – by adding value.

After all, if we are not perceived to add value then, collectively and individually, we will always be at risk of substitution, or elimination.

I believe therefore that the first thing we have to do is to change the way in which IT is regarded within our organisations.

lose the cost centre, start talking value centre

At the moment, I suspect that far too many organisations see their IT as a hindrance – and we have been our own worst enemies by accepting our previously undervalued position as “Costs” or “Overheads.”

No wonder then that we are struggling for the recognition that some feel we deserve in the corporate pecking order.

We need to transform ourselves into a new value proposition and the quickest way to do this is by getting rid of these old shackles that have hampered us for so long.

Let’s start by chucking out the “negative” terminology applied to the IT function and forget about tags such as “Cost Centre” or “Corporate Overhead.”

From now on we should refer to ourselves as “Value Centres.”

This is not a piece of simple badge engineering, though. We can’t just hope to become valued overnight, simply by changing our accountancy tags. If only.

ooze added business value

No, we have to follow through with a radical overhaul of our own IT functions – to ensure that we demonstrate genuine desire to ooze added business value at every opportunity.

Another major problem is that for far too long we have tended to organise ourselves along techno-centric lines, i.e. into clusters around particular technology, rather than into functional lines that our business colleagues and partners can recognise easily and work with comfortably.

So let’s reorganise away from the technology lines, run our departments as “a business within a business” and show the rest of the company what we can really do to help them.

Believe me it does work.

It is a simple fact that the most successful IT departments I have observed over the past twenty years have been those that have embraced a truly commercial approach to service delivery, even where the nature of the encompassing organisation has not been a strictly commercial operation.

I also think that the primary reason for their success has been their desire to prove their value to their customers, rather than meekly accepting the role of corporate cost-centre scapegoat.

adding persistent value

The Mission Statement for a business-driven IT department is simple -, there is one absolutely fundamental question that each of us should ask ourselves every day: how can I add persistent value to a successful organisation?

As far as self-preservation is concerned, this question also helps us individually to maintain our own personal value proposition – so that we can focus on a relevant future, instead of continually looking over our backs waiting for the tap on the shoulder….

So how do you think that IT can add persistent value to a successful organisation?