IT Department's Next Incarnation

Origin: NewsFactor Network
Source: Jay Lyman- www.newsfactornetwork.com,
Date: October 10, 2002

Introduction

Current economic conditions and the need to cut costs have resulted in a shift from the independent, autonomous IT departments of ages past to more centralized IT shops.
While the sharing of IT services and infrastructure is bringing increased efficiency and remedying the notorious disconnect between corporate management and IT, it is also calling on IT staff to do more work with fewer resources.

As a result, experts said, the IT department of the future will be more generalized -- focusing on infrastructure issues like network architecture, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and relationship management. The more mundane tech support and administration tasks will increasingly be delegated to "outside" consultants.

Fiefdoms No More

"When we were all fat and happy, you basically had these islands of information," Yankee Group senior analyst Laura DiDio told NewsFactor. "Network administrators were feudal lords in their own fiefdoms -- they ruled and they had purchasing power. Now that technology is becoming end to end, a lot of these feudal lords are being absorbed, and they cannot make their decisions independently."

Giga Information Group research manager Marc Cecere agreed, telling NewsFactor that instead of having independent IT groups, corporations and government agencies instead are hiring senior executives to head technology departments. As such, IT equipment purchasing decisions are increasingly being made centrally, by business executives, rather than by individual technology gurus in charge of particular aspects of the enterprise.

Under Pressure

DiDio said a more centralized IT department can boost efficiency for corporations, but she added that in addition to controlling equipment budgets, companies are also cutting costs by pressuring IT staff to accomplish more work with fewer resources. As can be expected, the increased demands on IT workers are creating frustration.

"It's a mess out there," DiDio said. "People are being asked to fly by the seat of their pants -- that's the rule and not the exception."

Good and Bad

Cecere said that even though hiring IT chiefs from the business side of operations can bridge the disconnect between management and technology leaders, there are liabilities associated with the practice.

"The person running IT is not sophisticated with regard to IT [in such a situation]. They can be overdependent on consultants or don't trust IT and look to others," Cecere said. "That causes a very difficult political environment for the people within the organization."