10 Mantras better IT 

The days of technology deployment just because your competition was doing it are long gone. Today, every rupee spent on IT requires a justification, and not without a good reason. The competition is increasing, and customers are becoming ever more demanding. Companies have to fight harder than before to retain their customers. This definitely calls for better products and services, which essentially translates to higher costs of operation. Of course, the changes in govt. policies don't help either many a times. The introduction of VAT for instance, had most companies running in a frenzy trying to incorporate it into their accounting systems. In such a tough scenario, companies typically end up doing two things-cost cutting and discounting.

While this is a fact of life, it's not the foundation on which a business can grow. Every business needs investments to grow, and typically companies would prefer to focus their energy on investing in building their brand, doing market surveys and running customer loyalty programs. That's where the role of the captain of IT comes in. If you as the IT in-charge can convince your management that Information Technology is an equally worthy investment if not more, and that all the business activities they'd like to carry out can be better performed using IT, then you've done your job. 

Unfortunately, that's the toughest challenge, because it requires an understanding of the business and how it functions. It's tough because most IT managers are brought up on a staple diet of servers, protocols and networking. Ask them about the latest buzzwords in the IT world, and you won't hear the end of it, but ask them about the marketing campaign of the company's latest product, and they'll start floundering for words after a while. Many companies, therefore, end up appointing an IT head with a finance background, which also has its demerits-the person would understand number crunching, but not technology! What's required therefore, is the right balance of technical and business knowledge. An IT manager who can understand both IT and business will be able to marry the two successfully.

IT needs to be understood so that the company's IT infrastructure can be best utilized, and new IT purchases be made wisely. And business needs to be understood to determine which IT solution is the best fit, which IT partner can best service it, and how can the IT team manage it effectively. 

In this story, we take you through the ten mantras, which, we feel, will help you manage your IT infrastructure better, and should, therefore, form a core part of your IT strategy. The role of a CIO today has evolved from being technology head to a multi-faceted personality. 

You need to be a technologist, a business head, a fortune teller, a negotiator, a project manager and much more. The reason is simple IT spends all functions in the organization, so whoever manages it must understand a little bit of everything. So the first one is about understanding your business needs only then can the best solution be worked out. While in theory, this sounds simple, it's extremely difficult to carry out in practice. 

In fact, in a survey, we did last year, of the key IT concerns that IT managers face, one of the key concerns was that of

convincing top management to invest in IT. Similarly, another challenge they faced was in trying to convince the various business managers to use technology. Since the management understands business and not much of technology, the IT manager has to learn to speak their language. While this is tough, it's not impossible. Let's look at some of the ways. 

MANTRA 1: Understand your business needs

Out of operations and into strategy



PCs not working, Internet bandwidth is choked, there's a new worm on the prowl, the list of troubles goes on and on for an IT manager. These are never-ending issues, so if you continue to remain caught in them, you'll never be able to fulfill the first mantra. So the first thing to do is to take some time out of these day-to-day operational issues, and spend some time with your business managers. 

The objective is to understand what they go through every day in running their departments, and whether the company's IT infrastructure is able to support them in any way. 

Be prepared, however, that besides receiving business 'gyan', you might also receive a lot of comments (not necessarily positive) about how IT doesn't work. This is good in a way, since it brings you face-to-face with ground realities. 

As IT is one of the few functions in an organization that's spread across all departments, it's important that IT managers don't live in their own ivory towers. They must be able to interact with all users and understand their problems. 

Learn to identify the burning issues



You definitely are not required to learn each business manager's functions by heart and become an expert at them. The objective here is to know enough to be able to identify the exact problem in order to devise and present a convincing case on how IT can help resolve it. This will not happen over night, so you will need to spend enough time with enough people in the business unit to understand the issues they face. More often than not, the key problem will be surrounded by a lot of other issues. Let's look at this with an example. For instance, the key business need for a manufacturing firm would be to bring out more innovative products in the least possible time. So the head of manufacturing would always be under extreme pressure to improve product lifecycles, while keeping the inventory and production costs under control. 

Realistically speaking, the last thing on such a person's mind would be to sit down and explain the problems to an IT manager, who doesn't know a thing about manufacturing. So while you might be overflowing with ideas on how IT can help the manufacturing unit, it's of no use if the manufacturing head is not willing to listen. 

This can be quite a challenge, and needs to be addressed with care. So you might even need to speak to others as well, than just the manufacturing head, to understand the problems. 

Build the right case for IT



This involves two things. One is to come up with an IT solution that best resolves the problem. Taking the above example of a manufacturing firm further, the simplest solution to their problem would be to move product development to a computer-simulated environment. 

If computer simulation is already being used, then try and improve the workflow between them. If this is already in place, then allow the customers to also collaborate on the same. Whatever the level, the technology is available, people have to be convinced to use it. That's the second step. How you convince them is up to you. It may involve going beyond technology and talking about the key benefits to users and the management. 

So instead of talking about the configurations of high-end graphics workstations, and the nitty-gritty of Gigabit Ethernet networks, one would need to convey the exact impact on the product lifecycle, what would be the exact time and cost savings against what was being done previously. 

The management likes to see numbers, and you can show the right numbers only if you know the business problems being addressed. 

Anil Chopra, Sujay V Sarma