What are the challenges facing IT today? (Part II)

One of the main stumbling blocks of IT is the time to market of new solutions. The life-cycle of too many projects get extended to the point where they are no longer valuable to the business. In this sense IT needs to take a leading role in defining what business requirements contribute to the success of the project, and this means it needs to be an active stakeholder in the definition and implementation of the strategy.

Globalization presents its challenges in the form of legislation, culture, cost structure and local service. This means that business models, applications and infrastructure are usually difficult to re-use in their entirety abroad. Instead many multinational businesses opt to select those components they can re-use and implement other solutions to adapt their IT infrastructure and services to their local business model. Also matrix organizations are usually setup where local talent is used as much as possible while leveraging centralized services and knowledge.

One of the important functions of IT is the continuity of technology-based services such as provisioning of accounts, processing of transactions and supervision of system performance. In order for the business to operate efficiently IT must comply with agreed upon service levels which become increasingly demanding as businesses try to be more competitive. As is expected IT organizations usually have to balance costs with service level obligations and sometimes find innovative ways of resolving these issues.

IT professionals in particular have a big challenge in their hands if they view their scope of work as purely technical. I have seen a lot of frustration generated because of a lack of understanding of the current infrastructure and its constraints on the part of business stakeholders. Other elements that contribute to dissatisfaction among IT professionals is lack of definition in their roles and objectives, lack of empowerment, problems in communications and a lack of recognition. This has generated more rotation and the need for businesses to find other solutions such as outsourcing which reduce costs but in the end rarely improve revenue. I would personally like to see IT define job positions more in terms of their business and less in terms of technical specifications.

When it comes to new business requirements and organizational change, IT professionals have a hard time dealing with the complexities of their architecture and infrastructure. Usually a lot of effort goes into analyzing the impact of the changes required so as to ensure the continuity of the current service and the delivery of the required functionality. The complexity increases considerably if changes are applied almost simultaneously. The organization also has to be taken fully into account as procedures and application usage change. Also, new ways of doing business such as on-line social networks require new tools and communications protocols that potentially expose the business to additional security threats.

IT organizations have had a tendency of viewing their budgets as a life-line for their operations. However, in their search to be more competitive, businesses have found more value in financial data that can help them make better decisions. In this sense IT departments must see their company's bottom-line as their life-line and participate more in the definition and measurement of metrics as well as the selection of which projects and services to undertake. The result should be more investment when business opportunities arise, which will surely make most stakeholders in the business happier.