CEO Recommendation
Nowadays the I.T. sector gets more and more important, not only for the big enterprises but also for small companies. Business activities without I.T. and the World Wide Web are not imaginable. The number of companies who fail in their business because of a failure in the I.T. is very high.
So the question to be asked is: “What needs a company to do to ensure I.T. success?”
Firstly it must be noticed that there is more than one reason responsible for I.T. success. It is not enough to have the best hard- and software or the latest version of a Customer Relationship Management Program in a company. It is also very important that the operating employees have a good knowledge about the programs and the I.T. infrastructure in a company.
To ensure that the employees meet the fast changing I.T. demands, a regularly training program must be attended. Of course training is expensive, but it is more expensive to be out of the business.
It should be seen as a precondition that the company employs a CIO who has an established knowledge about I.T. Not less important than the knowledge about I.T. are the personal skills of the CIO. The ability to communicate effectively is the most important personal skill for every leader.
Every CIO must be able to understand the business processes and should have the ability to think in a strategic way. Planning for the company’s future development is also crucial. On this point it must be considered that CIO’s have to deal with things beyond I.T. like managing the staff, so the time for I.T. issues nowadays is limited.
Concerning the balance between investing in new I.T. infrastructure and managing the costs it has to be said that CIO’s have to deal successfully on a small edge. Today there is often the problem that companies have limited resources which must be allocated between the different departments.
Another main point is to be innovative. Companies who want to be successful in I.T. have to spend more money on innovation. In our very fast changing world companies can not afford not to be up to date, because if the competitor is fast or has a better I.T. infrastructure it will be hard to compete.
Furthermore it is necessary to be flexible so that you can react to changes on the market. It should be noted that the I.T. infrastructure can be modified and adapted to the local requirements. I.T. must be align in the right size and structure to the company so that the capacity to act is guaranteed e.g. not to have a huge I.T. infrastructure for a small company.
One more big competitive advantage for a company could be that they have the same software application or operating system and programs like the suppliers and customers. To have the same or nearly the same I.T. infrastructure makes it easier to do real time business.
For the Just-In-Time inventory system it is necessary that data can be exchanged between the companies.
The development of a non-customer software from scratch should be avoided, because it costs a lot of money and the development requires a lot of know how and time, so the probability to fail is very high. In most of the cases it is easier to buy an established program.
Additionally it has to be mentioned that every I.T. project must have an economic sense. Therefore it is significant that in such a project the team members are mixed e.g. business person and I.T. person, because each one of them has a different point of view.
It might be hard for ateam consisting only of I.T. people to see the business point of the project and vice versa. To minimize costs it is crucial to asked the following question: What are the reasons for the project and does the outcome really support our initial considerations? I.T. solutions should support and fulfil the requirements of the customers and make a contribution to achieve the company’s goal.
As a conclusion it can be said that it is essential to build a bridge between business and I.T. Only if everybody in the company understands that it is not possible to do business without I.T. companies can succeed in their business and also in I.T. The I.T. sector should be seen as an internal supplier who provides the whole I.T. infrastructure and supports other departments in their every day business.