Is Today's IT an Undervalued Asset?

mwillems asks: "I work in the technology industry, as a CTO. What I have increasingly seen in the last year, both in North America and Europe, is that IT has ceased to be a valid way to spend corporate money. IT spending used to be looked at as a way to gain competitive advantages. Since the .com bust, the arguments I hear everywhere is 'IT has now been proven to be a waste of money'. At many companies it is now easier to get a corporate account at a strip club than a new PC. Or a budget to develop a much-needed corporate app. If any spending is done it is on hardware - at least that is 'real'. Do Slashdot readers recognise that? Are there going to be many techies left ten years from now? What can we do to keep the spirit of innovation alive while this 'IT is bad' era lasts, and how can we make it end? And, how do you prove the value of IT? This is not as simple as it seems. Try it with a spreadsheet: as your typical CTO has to do so, every day." How do you feel about the cost benefits of IT? Is it worth what your company spends on it, especially if the advantages can't be reduced to a simple dollars-and-cents figure?

Comments

Re:No, OVERVALUED

[TheTrunkDr.]

Asking "What is the value of IT?" reminds me of the admins we always have to deal with who think the fundamental activity here is having a network and computers, and that all those things everyone tries to do with their computers are just irritating distractions from idiot lusers.

spoken like a person who's never been on the support side of this issue. The admins don't think the fundamental activity is having a network and computers, they think that keeping them working is the admins' fundamental activity, and it is. It's people like you who think that your job is somehow more important, or that the admins are responsible when something happens. You're right though, they don't give a crap about your job, their's is to keep the network and systems running so you all can do your work. It's attitudes like yours that make admins attitudes' the way you describe. You're basically blaming the admin for computers not working with what you're saying here, and they blame you for the same thing. Fact is when the system goes down, it's all the workers (and management) bitching at the admins/IT dept. to get it up and running, and when they do they get bitched at for it having gone down, which is often not their fault at all!! they don't get much appreciation, even when things run smooth.