IT success is built on value and communication

Value for money, customer focus and alignment with business strategies are essential to any sustained success for technology.

But IT managers are often their own worst enemies in trying to communicate genuine benefits.

That was the conclusion of the first of Computing's Value debates at the ICT Works Conference in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

A distinguished panel of guests at St James Park, representing public and private sector users, outsourcers, suppliers and universities disagreed strongly about the roles, image and psychology of the IT department.

But value and communication were the strong uniting factors.

Tom Cosh, head of economic development at Newcastle City Council said IT success could only to be built on benefits that could be effectively communicated to the wider business or organisation.

'If we cannot very clearly demonstrate what the benefits of technologies are, and the content to drive people through the various access channels, then in pretty short order people will turn away from us.

That communication needed to be a two-way process, warned Ed Brown, who sits on the regional Broadband Task Force.

'Unless you are aligning business process reengineering with the IT you are trying to put in, you are never going to see it work.

'It's a real problem when the IT role is managed by the finance department. Then you get a bunch of bean counters controlling a bunch of geeks, trying to communicate to the business.

'The whole of IT has one massive problem and that can be summed up in one word - communication,' said Steve Ross, of Deloitte and Touche.

He said the image of the IT Geek was probably less damaging than the idea of cool technology and gadgets with which Tom Cruise could save the world.

'We over-romanticise technical wizardry and we're disappointed when the wizard doesn't have a magic wand.'

Vernon Poole, global taskforce leader of the IT Governance Institute, said change was inevitable.

'IT departments never had the means or the mechanism to value how well they provide services and the associated housekeeping in terms of security.'

Businesses like Tesco proved what could be achieved when such mechanisms were put in place, he said.

See also:

The Value Report

Computing is helping to lead the debate about the value of IT  24 Jun 2003

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