Blogs

The elephant in IT's room

Posted Mon, 2011-08-15 00:00 by Terry White

There is a difference between form and function. IT departments often deliver the form (systems, infrastructures, services), but our businesses want the function (well managed customer relationships, reduced costs, competitive differentiation). This is the difference between outputs and outcomes - IT deliver outputs, business wants outcomes.

When asked what they really want from their IT departments, CEOs are uncommonly consistent. They want: "IT without fuss, involvement in business improvements, and appropriate leadership." Whenever I talk to IT management, there seem to be some invisible words here - they don't see "without fuss", they don't see "involved" and they don't see "appropriate" yet these are the clear outcomes required by CEOs - in fact these are the only words CEOs often see.

IT people focus on the form: "Deliver IT (we've got an SLA so that's covered), business improvement (yeah, we deliver systems on time and in budget), and leadership (we're subscribing to various research houses - we know what's going on out there)."

English is the second language of CIOs

Posted Tue, 2011-07-12 00:00 by Terry White

It keeps happening - Let me give you an example: I was sitting in a Board presentation of a CIO's budget, and the CIO said: We need 2 million year week for DR. One Board member leaned over and whispered to another: "What's DR?" The other paused for a moment and said: "Oh, that's BCM." and both sat back with comfortable looks on their faces.

So the IT Disaster Recovery budget was approved, but at least two Board members thought they were getting full Business Continuity Management for their money.

Now the fault lies in part with the Board members for not clarifying the issue, but I've sat in enough Board meetings to know how much political ego is invested, so no-one was going to ask the stupid questions. And the problem should not have arisen anyway.

I spend a lot of my time advising CIOs on their IT budgets, and how to communicate their budget requirements in ways that business people understand. I failed in this instance, but the CIO was big enough to follow up her poor communication effort with an e-mail to the Board members explaining what DR was, and pointing out that it was definitely not BCM.

In another case, I was called by a CIO in a panic who said: "I've just been told by the finance committee to cut my budget by 20%, and go back next week with how I'll do it And I can't do it - the business will suffer."

When an IT function does as little technology as possible

Posted Wed, 2011-06-15 12:19 by Terry White

Local analyst does good

Posted Mon, 2010-10-11 15:56 by Terry White

A rock and a hard place – get used to it

Posted Mon, 2010-10-11 15:56 by Terry White

This morning I had a second government organisation bemoaning the fact that as the economy slows down, they are being told to make cutbacks in IT. But at the same time, they are being asked to develop more IT solutions to help the organisation with their own cost-cutting exercises.

Going for the quick fix leads to the slow bleed

Posted Mon, 2010-10-11 15:56 by Terry White

It’s a simple equation: Profits = Income minus Expenses.  Increase income or decrease costs and you increase profit. Given a crisis, most executives get out the red pencil and the ‘cost-cutting’ programme is launched.

If all accountants can do is count – we might be in trouble

Posted Mon, 2010-10-11 15:56 by Terry White

There’s the saying: “Nothing counts unless it can be counted.”.  So let’s count the counters.

Recently Charles Handy in his book ‘Beyond Certainty’, observed that there were 170 000 registered bean-counters in Britain.  And only 7 000 in Japan.  These are members of accountancy bodies in each country.  There are 20 000 in Germany and 4 000 in France.

IT can never add value (while they continue to do what they’ve always done)

Posted Mon, 2010-10-11 15:56 by Terry White

Recent research shows that three things trouble CIOs today:
•    How do I keep IT costs down?
•    How do I add value, and be seen to add value?
•    How do I align with my business?
But our research also shows that in general, the average CIO can only deliver against the first of these concerns.

Useless visions

Posted Mon, 2010-10-11 15:56 by Terry White

Is your vision blurred?

Information Technology’s role in the end of the world

Posted Mon, 2010-10-11 15:56 by Terry White

“Information Technology is causing us to consume more, faster.” So says a friend of mine – he’s a Doctor of Economics, so his opinion is not to be taken lightly.

IT is of course a double-edged sword – yes it does help us to consume faster – but it also has created significant quality of life improvements as well. The question is which outweighs the other?

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