Remaining the business's preferred IT partner

David Bicknell

12 months ago 0 Comments

There have been many articles written about the changing role of IT and how it must adapt to meet the demands of the business.

This piece makes some good points about how IT no longer has a monopoly on its enterprise customers. In a bring your own device-driven (BYOD) and Cloud-based world, customers can and do go around IT.

They'll use their iPhone for work, even if you want them to stick to their tried and tested corporate Blackberry, and if they want to use Cloud storage, then IT had better consider providing it, otherwise business users will be signing up for their own Cloud-based services through a Dropbox account: they won't wait six weeks or more for IT to sign off and provision it.

What is clear for IT managers now is that business users are no longer a captive entity, and in some cases, IT will not even be their 'preferred supplier.' What IT departments and their managers must do is to prove the value of what IT can do.

What that means is that IT departments that want to retain their relevance must 'make the leap' from being technicians responsible for maintaining systems, and reinvent themselves as service providers i.e. experts that offer a menu of services and offer intelligent recommendations about which ones will help drive the business forward.

It's not an easy transition to make. Some dos and don'ts considered in the article are:

Dos:

• Take a long hard look in the mirror
• Automate your infrastructure
• Solve business problems
• Build a catalogue of services
• Become a data specialist

Don'ts:

• Jump in before you're ready
• Get stuck changing lightbulbs
• Try to be an IT hero
• Forget about people, policies, and processes
• Be a server hugger
  

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