IT Mission Statement

What is the purpose of having IT in the company? We all know it needs to be there, but why specifically? Is it to provide technology and fix it when it breaks? Some CEOs may think so. It is, however, a very limited perception. The mission of IT is much broader than that.

The concept of a service, so familiar to ITIL practitioners, is very handy for the purpose of creating IT mission statement. IT nowadays does not provide technology, but services. Email is a service, so is videoconferencing or sales system provision. But is it enough?

Ultimately, your customers do not care about the services you provide. They want you to solve their problems. By doing this, you provide real value to them. Videoconferencing is not only a technology platform, but also a way to reduce travel costs, while maintaining high level of interaction among employees.

Let's look at it from another point of view. How would we help the company reduce distribution costs? We could do it by implementing a good logistics planning system. Or we could implement some clever tweaks to the one we have. We could revisit our SLAs and maintenance contracts, looking for new options to provide the service in an affordable way.

The bottom line is, that IT should take its part of this challenge. IT departments operating in such spirit should take as their motto to provide value to the company through efficient provision of services.

These are not just fancy words. There are plenty of companies with IT departments entrenched on defensive positions. No proactive, business-facing approach. Helping users with their MS Office questions seems to be the clue of their activity. Additional flavor is provided by keeping a few servers online, with a current backup.

Dear IT Managers, do not get trapped like that. Do not let shadow IT grow. Get out of your trenches, roll up your sleeves and help your business face the challenges that lie ahead!

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Share