IT can still have a value in a
downturn as long as the walls of the datacentre come down and
technologists work
alongside business people and communicate in terms that the
business people understand.
Debating the thorny question of IT value and the gap between IT
and the business, a panel of experts and customers at the SAP user
conference, Sapphire, took the view that there is much to be gained
still from
technology investment, but the way that investment is managed
is ever more critical.
"Even if a CIO is not reporting to the CEO, they will be
reporting to a corporate officer of some kind," said Abbe Mulders,
CIO at Dow Corning. "IT cannot do everything. You have to work with
your business partners - we call them business clients inside Dow
Corning. You need to understand how they work and how they plan to
grow the business."
To see quantifiable return on investment on technology, it is
important to ensure that the IT people get out of the datacentre
and into the guts of the business. "The broad lesson for the IT
shop is to look beyond the IT shop and not just focus on cutting
costs there. You need to reach out and touch the other parts of the
organisation," said Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT Sloan School of
Management.
He added that organisations need to carry on investing and do it
wholeheartedly, as halfhearted effort offers no benefit. "Companies
which go three-quarters of the way are worse than those which do
nothing. Technology is a catalyst, but you need to consider things
like incentives and training and so on. Firms that pull together a
cluster of practices will do the best," he said.
The overall
lesson for IT is not to talk IT. "Regardless of who the CIO is
talking to, they have to be
talking in business language and about business outcomes,"
argued Bill McDermott, head of global field sales at SAP.
"If the CIO talks to the CEO about databases and technology
stacks, they will get nowhere. You do have to deal with the line of
business manager and not the poor CIO stuck in the middle of it
all."