IT Departments can add significant business value. But often don’t.

When people talk about IT, it is most often about things they aren’t allowed to do, how slow it is to get anything done and how poor the customer service is. It is time for this to change… and guess what, it is not the responsibility of “the business” to change it.

The truth is that your IT team most probably don’t suck as much as you think. Though they might be viewed as rigid, inflexible and intentionally obstructing progress.It’s a truth that most people prefer to be competent and want to do a great job. Internal IT exist in complex world where they need to do a lot of things that are invisible to users to make sure systems work; boring, expensive things that are difficult (but not impossible) to quantify into hard business outcomes, so are either not funded, or require man power to plug the gap, taking valuable hours away from an already limited schedule. They also need to do big, visible shiny projects that are probably demanding speed over stability, are of questionable value or could be delivered more effectively and create instability in the current environment. But they must be done.

Because of this perception of IT business units begin to bypass the IT department and implement projects without their involvement, this is highlighted by research that suggests nearly 50% of IT spending in enterprises is done without IT department involvement. Enter IT being too busy chasing their tail to do the things that will really solve add value. Often IT responds to this by introducing more policies, rejecting to support integration and rolling out enterprise systems with a view to force users onto them or flat out ignoring the business. The circle of IT & business disconnection continues on a never-ending cycle and the enterprise fails to extract value from their investments (in systems and those smart people in IT). This only compounds the strain on IT, increasing technical debt (That one day you will have to pay for!) substantially increases risk and decreases business security.

We know business IT spending without IT involvement increases architectural complexity, support and future opportunity costs, increasing risk due to lack of focus on security, risk and architecture.

How do we break the cycle?

Yes, user expectations have increased dramatically as consumer technology has become easier and more accessible. The environment IT manage is more complex than end-users are aware, budgets are tight, nobody understand what IT do to ensure the environment is secure, lifecycled, stable and performing in its current form. Add to this the need to juggle the onslaught of requests, unplanned projects and innovation. Its no wonder IT struggles and the business becomes frustrated.

Start by coming to terms with reality;

• Vendors will continue to sell direct to users
• Users will continue to use cloud services without thinking of business governance;
• Until you prove otherwise, you will be seen as a necessary evil and a cost centre
• People will continue to complain when things break

IT departments need to change the way they view themselves. In the past IT was bestowed the monopoly over all thing’s technology and nothing could happen without them. Those days are done (a long time ago). IT now needs to work to become the preferred IT partner to the business and convince them to listen to them. Think manager of IT Products and Services, rather than technology. (Some might say IT partnering is old hat, now they need to be integrated – yes, great. I agree. How do you integrate before you are a trusted partner? Skipping the hard work never really works out.)

Think about an external service provider who needs to retain a contracted service. They can’t just respond to the business by doing everything because they will fail, they can’t say no to everything or take weeks to respond to requests or they will lose their contract. They have entire functions dedicated to listening to the customer, responding, ensuring value delivery and managing relationships.

Now there are many ways IT can turn themselves into the preferred partner and I can’t cover everything here, however I will outline the top five things I recommend;

Enterprise Architecture:

Enterprise architecture must become relatable for the business. The complex diagram with tiny writing and lots of boxes is very impressive but nobody wants to look at it except for enterprise architects. The moment you bring it out in a meeting any non-technical person shuts down and thinks “why do they always make things so complex!”. Simplify it, convert the enterprise architecture into business unit specific views and have them converted into visual aids that are easy to look at and talk about. Tie the applications, infrastructure and integrations back to business capabilities. This makes conversations about technology so much easier and helps articulate the importance of IT.

For example: an investment is required to upgrade some network equipment and IT needs to articulate it to the business. There are some options:

• Option 1: “We need to spend $x on upgrading our edge network switches and two core routers that are now 5 years old and end of life”
• Options 2: “We need to invest $x on upgrading the network infrastructure that is critical in the connectivity of the payment gateways on system1 and 3. These are critical systems within our retail platform and underpin our online capability.”

You can also use these artefacts to communicate with the business status of systems on the roadmap. When you can show that “digital workforce capability” is on the roadmap and what impact that will have on their system people are more inclined to talk to you before buying something new.

Account Management (business Partnering):

Learn from service providers and setup a focused team that manages the relationship with business units on behalf of IT. Don’t be tempted to make this a technical role that can help do service requests, that is the service desks job. This role should work closely with your enterprise architects to understand the business architecture and work with the business to understand their needs, wants and desires. Then engage the right people in those conversations to shape demand and manage expectations.

Rather than saying yes or no to “IT projects” these people ask “and what do you want to implement that for? What will than help you achieve? How does this align with your business priorities? When would you need a solution in place by? How does it fit in our priorities? Etc….

I have heard the argument that this is an additional expense that cannot be justified when budgets are tight. I urge you to do an exercise to cost the time spent by IT resources reacting to shadow IT projects that have caused business disruption or fighting over whether a business case stacks up. This can be avoided completely with a good account management process and resources.

Own Products and services, not technology

Allign your structure to managing solutions and capabilities that support a business function as a customer, and provide applications and data services as products to that business. Create a structure of people to support the forward-facing strategy of that product aligned to the business or business unit strategy. This is where you add the real value that IT has to offer.

Focus on business strategy, efficiency and governance

As IT professionals we understand how the business hangs together, what the future impacts could be and are wired to identify potential impacts of our decisions on other functions. This is a magic mix of capabilities being wasted while you run around fixing things that outsourced providers can manage for you.

Rather than fighting to maintain control of ‘IT systems’ focus on adding so much value through your understanding of the business, applications and process that you are indispensable. You become experts in the customer facing elements of technology and strategy then engage partners to manage the backend where possible. Have your team overly governance over the external vendors to ensure they are adding value.

Review your project portfolio

The projects you are delivering or promising to deliver can grow rapidly and if you don’t maintain a stringent approach to what gets on the list, how you priorities and when you have to stop – you will perpetuate the cycle of madness. Take the time to review the project portfolio, broken down into categories and business functions. Then sit with the business and assign a priority, urgency and other relevant variables. Remove some, put some on hold and then when you have the new list review the resources, capabilities and time required to deliver. From here you can determine what you can do, where you need a partner and what needs to be placed on hold. Take the business through this (don’t decide what they wont be able to do) and get their buy-in. 

If IT embraces a view that they are not a monopoly and need to convince their business stakeholders to work with them, actively work with the business to solve problems and demonstrate the understanding of business, costs and strategy they will not only become an integrated, trusted partner but create an exciting and engaging career for their people.