THE GREAT DIVORCE - IT AND BUSINESS

THE GREAT DIVORCE – IT AND BUSINESS

By W H Inmon

Several years ago, I was talking to a group of technicians at a large telecommunications company. I mentioned the word – “customer”. One of the technicians raised their hand and asked – “do we have customers?” The problem was that the technician was not joking. He really didn’t know that his company had customers.

This was merely a symptom of something larger that has occurred and is continuing to occur today. The IT community has been separated from and divorced from the business community that it was supposed to serve.

So why has this divorce occurred?

Like all divorces, there are many causes and many factors contributing to the divorce. All of these causes and factors have contributed to the divorce.

1)?????Years ago, technicians found that it was easier to get raises by switching companies than it was to wait for the company to give the annual raise. The way that the technician switched companies was by becoming conversant and having expertise in a technology. The loyalty of the technician switched from the business of the company to the technology of the vendor.

2)?????When the computer first appeared on the scene, there were no qualified managers of technology anywhere. Whoever was standing in place in the corporation when the computer first appeared was suddenly designated as the manager of technology. All of the people that were designated as managers of IT had no expertise on managing technology. The people that were designated as managers of IT needed advice on how to run IT, and the technology vendor was the natural place to seek advice. In many regards, the vendors of technology made the important decisions about what went on in the corporation, not the people who had been designated as IT managers. For all practical purposes, IT reported to the vendor, not the business itself.

3)?????In the early days of the computer the amount of money spent on computing was relatively small. The IT budget was so small that it was almost overlooked in the budget of the corporation. But today the IT budget is one of the largest expenses of the corporation. The greater the IT budget became, the more independent the IT department became of the business.

4)?????Technology was complex and ever changing. IT was supposed to be able to understand technology and the end user was supposed to be unable to comprehend technology. IT used this subterfuge as a reason to keep business out of their hair. If all else failed, IT told the business end user that they just could not comprehend the complexities that were being presented.

5)?????Chasing the silver bullet. Over and over IT fell for the “silver bullet” promised by vendors. The business end user got tired of IT making promises it never kept. Silver bullet after silver bullet failed to deliver on its hype. Yet IT kept falling for the newest silver bullet. And IT just kept right on buying silver bullets and kept right on failing.

6)?????IT made promise after promise to the business community that it never kept, or even came close to keeping. The business community simply got tired of listening to IT and their unfulfilled promises.

7)?????The personal computer made technology affordable and manageable for the business end user. With the personal computer, the business end user was free to conduct their own business. As long as the business end user was tied to a mainframe, the end user was at the mercy of IT. But the personal computer fundamentally changed the equation.

And there were lots of other factors contributing to the divorce.

So where does that leave IT and business today? IT has turned into a caretaker organization. IT no longer looks for innovation or even tries to advance the business interests of the corporation. IT just tries to take care of what has fallen into its lap. ?IT still runs a certain part of the business, usually paying enormous amounts of money on hardware and software maintenance. Business is developing its own IT department that runs independently of the larger corporate IT department. Marketing has its own IT. Sales has its own IT. Finance has its own IT. Engineering has its own IT. The new applications and the new innovations are to be found in the outlying functional organizations of the business and these new renditions of IT very much are related to the business function that manages them..

One manifestation of the decline of corporate IT has been the struggle of the business community to get away from the incompetence of IT management. First business tried hiring consultants to build new projects. Then business tried to off shore everything. Today business is putting everything on the cloud. Business is doing everything it knows how to do to get free from the tyranny of the IT department.

So IT did not go away. It is just being reinvented in the individual business units and reports to the business units. And these outlying functional business units IT department really do understand the business of the organization. Because the outlying IT organizations report directly to the business functions.

Bill Inmon lives in Denver with his wife and his two Scotty dogs – Jeb and Lena, Jeb and Lena get their walks twice a day unless it is snowing or unless there is ice on the street. And if they don’t get their walks, they let Bill know in no uncertain terms.