IT Has To Do Its Job—And Market Itself Better
by Carl Weinschenk
Network World writer Denise Dubie offers an interesting report on a study from Forrester Research that looked at the relationship between top level executives and IT.
Several things come through. The first is that IT is not doing a great job of marketing itself internally. That is no great surprise. IT always has done a better job of talking to itself than to others.
The survey, which was limited to large North American firms, found that the executives often give primary credit for business application development and support to entities besides IT, including vendors and third-party developers. Only 58 percent credited IT with app development, though Dubie notes that the department almost always is deeply involved. Put more simply, IT plays second banana too often.
Other results in the survey suggest that the problem may be more than image. The mediocre grades given by the 600 executives queried quite possibly suggest that IT isn't doing as good a job as it should. For instance, only 45 percent of respondents view IT as helping improve workforce productivity. This is as likely to be the result of bad performance as bad marketing.
There are three things to think about here. First and foremost, IT departments must strive to support their organizations as effectively as possible. Secondly, they must do a better job of letting the bosses know what they are doing and why. This isn’t easy, because technology is by definition hard to describe.
The third takeaway is good news: Like the kid who gets a poor report card, there is tremendous room for improvement.
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