It is Time to Blow IT Up

Let’s make it happen!

Ask yourself one simple question: If you could magically change the way your organization operates – how would you do it? I am not asking what technologies would you acquire. I am not asking you to pivot to your industry’s equivalent of cold fusion. I am asking you to envision the perfect business processes flows. I am challenging you to no longer say “I could..., if I could just get the data I need.” You would have it. Time would no longer be spent on seeking efficiency gains. The stock reports would report nonstop about your growth. Innovation would be part of the daily routine.

Many of us in the business world can remember a time when the need for an IT department was questioned. There were serious debates around the value and return on investment. Companies had PC’s on a swivel so multiple people could share a single keyboard and screen. Documents could be shared overnight with a courier service. In a rush, send a fax!

Today, we know the value of IT. Overnight is too slow. A fax kills trees, and is clumsy compared to digital transfers. We don’t wonder if we should have an IT department. Today we wonder how we can get more. More speed. More processing. More access. More security. More insight. More data. More profit. More growth. More, more, more... The value isn’t questioned. It does, however, compete with the rest of the organization for the same precious commodities of budget, capital, and resources.

The goal is to provide the best return on your IT investment. Many businesses have a mix of systems and equipment. Some of it shiny and new, and some of it so old that only one or two people really have any idea how it works, and most of it somewhere in-between. The systems (hardware and software) were all acquired to solve a need of the business. Your technology generally manages to get along and talk to each other. Yet, all the different systems aren’t a cohesive architecture. They don’t solve the collective needs of your business.

They all share additional challenges. How do you meet your compliance needs? Disaster recovery? Patching? Fixing vulnerabilities? Defending against malware? Do they have the ability to “forget data” (to protect privacy) and still function? Can they encrypt data in transit and at rest? Can they all speak the same language and avoid a translator? Can they...? The list goes on, and in many cases, it is impossible to answer with a mix of legacy and newish technology in your business.

They have something even more critical in common. They are the information and process flow to your business. The most critical elements. Nothing happens without them. Email, data transfer systems, your website, and applications are how you talk to your suppliers, your customers, your employees, and your future contacts. Every piece of IT was put in with a purpose. But they weren’t put in with a singular purpose – to run your business in the most productive way. They were put in to solve a challenge at a point and time, and have been adapted, while their limitations are “just accepted”.

People are the soul of your business. Information Technology is the heart of your business.

What can be done? There is the traditional method. Prioritize your needs in the manner your organization uses. Submit your business case. Defend it, and ultimately get your slice of the budget to go improve portions of it. This time-honored tradition that businesses have used to fund all departments is the reason we are having this discussion.

I propose that it is time to upend that tradition for IT. I propose that we need to consider new methods of funding. Today many companies are reaching a saturation point in their stock buyback plans. The repurchasing of shares of stock by the company that issued them is no longer providing the return investors are seeking. Companies need to find another method to improve their shareholder value. Let’s use that money to invest in the business, IT specifically. History has shown us that when rebuilding is completed, those who rebuilt outperformed the ones that weren’t.

The Marshall Plan is a great example of multiple countries and industries that were rebuilt and went on to reign supreme on a global scale because they had new modern organizations. The USA allocated over $12 billion dollars to help rebuild Western Europe at the end of WWII. As a result, those rebuilt businesses had less waste, produced faster, and were able to innovate more effectively than the organizations that were using a mix of new, old, and somewhere in-between.

I recall traveling in the USA when wired internet connections were common. Wi-Fi, was a different story. Even for a fee, finding a hotel that had Wi-Fi was rare, and forget the airport or coffee shop. Then I spent some time working in Brazil. Wi-Fi was everywhere. I was shocked. I was there to evaluate my company's IT infrastructure, so I was able to dig into why Brazil had Wi-Fi. I spent time with the technical teams and I met with the Telco's. I learned that Brazil hadn’t made the big investment into a wired infrastructure that the USA had. Now that Wi-Fi was available, they were skipping the wired and going straight to wireless. This enabled them to innovate, and be mobile, more quickly than I could experience in my country.

It is time to blow IT up. Repurpose the money used for stock buybacks to invest in your business processes.

You need to answer the questions at the start of this article. You need to articulate how your legacy systems are holding business growth back. How data processing improvements can lead to faster production on the shop floor. How faster billing process can improve your cash flow. How all your systems can communicate over encrypted protocols, and data can be masked, allowing you to meet international privacy requirements. How you can lower the cost of your audits, while improving your compliance at the same time. And all the other questions that allow you to supercharge your business.

The work will be hard. You have to support your current IT, and not allow a single disruption to the business while you are doing this. The price tag won’t be small. The resistance will be strong.

Despite all the reasons that make this difficult, the results will be worth it. Every aspect of your business will be improved. You will be able to outperform all of your competitors. You have an architecture that is designed for modern day computing, and has the ability to work with tomorrow’s:

• You will embrace computing without boundaries;
• Have granular access to only the data your users need;
• Provided unparalleled cyber and privacy protections;
• Be the trusted partner with your customers’ data;

The list of improvements is long.

IT doesn’t need to be the key differentiator in your business, but it is the foundation to allowing your business process be the key differentiator. Your return on investment will be measured in your company's gains.

As IT Leaders, it is up to us to have this difficult conversation with the rest of the Leadership Team. We must sell it. We must deliver it. We must celebrate as the business wins!

About: Stephen Gilmer is an IT Professional who has traveled extensively domestically and internationally to advise clients on how to grow their business securely. He has worked with multiple government entities in his travels, with private and public companies, big and small. He enjoys public speaking, and helping companies learn how to make cybersecurity part of their DNA. Yes, he does enjoy fireworks, and other fun explosions.