Does IT Matter?

geoff313 asks: "I'm sure many of you are aware of the uproar over Nicholas Carr's article 'IT Doesn't Matter' which was published in the Harvard Business Review, back in May. While many big names in the IT world have responded already to Carr's article (Ballmer has declared it 'Hogwash' and Fiorina has pronounced it 'Dead Wrong'), Carr debated vendor executives Monday at the Comdex trade show, proving that the issues he raised are still resonaating through the industry. Do you feel that corporate IT budgets should be focusing on cutting edge technology to best serve its customer's needs, or should they focus on shoring up what they have now in order to maximize its usefulness to the customer? Some background can be found from the Washington Post, InfoWorld, and ZDNet, as well as at Nicholas Carr's site."

"For those of you unfamiliar his philosophy, it can be summed up pretty thoroughly by his statement 'Follow, don't lead,' arguing that the huge advances in the IT industry over the last two decades have erased the strategic advantage to be had by corporations for staying at the cutting edge of technology. In short, he advises 'executives need to shift their attention from IT opportunities to IT risks - from offense to defense.' Of course the head honchos at IBM and Microsoft disagreed with him, citing Wal-Mart's use of RFID tags to keep track of inventory and other forward thinking IT decisions as a refutation of his thesis.

What I am interested in is the opinion of those in trenches of the IT war."

Comments

Does it matter yes

[cluge]

The IT budget has to be looked at the same exact way as any other departmental budget. What does your company get for the money invested. If your ebay - the money may be well spent in IT. If your bricks and mortar inc you may wish to invest in other areas. It all depends. Only an analytical ruthless, pencil to paper approach will tell you that.

Unfortunately too many executives - scared at their own ineptness when it comes to IT think that a big IT budget and a smart (insert favoritte IT stereotype here) is going to make them a million bucks. Feast your eyes on the dot bomb waste land ladies and gentlemen.

In the end it is the talent of the people that make it work that will be the deciding factor - as long as they were hired after a very careful and down to earth review of what was needed. There is no substitute for hard work, and good analysis.

Employee Retention...

[curunir]

Will employees really want to work for a company that doesn't stay current with technology? I know I would be worried if I felt like my skillset was aging and I would be a less attractive hire to new employers.

I've met a lot of people who got into this industry because they enjoyed the "playful" nature of their work. Without the latest "toys" to play with, many IT workers won't enjoy their work.

Intelligent growth and application.

[MurrayTodd]

I worked a few years in the IT of a "Fortune 50" drug company. I cannot begin to tell you how many hundreds of thousands of dollars were thrown around for silly and stupid reasons, mostly so Pointy Haired Bosses could play "buzzword bingo" in order to sound important and get promotions.

I on the other hand worked in the trenches and off everyone's radar. I set up a Linux server (I could arguably claim to be the beginning of the Linux movement at this place.) and as I learned about a new interesting technology--mostly database and web stuff--I would ponder whether I could build something that would make IT's job easier. Over three major projects I could estimate having saved at least half a million dollars in labor by leveraging "new technology" to improve operations.

Now back to the question: what do we mean when we talk about being "offensive or defensive"? If offensive/proactive means implementing a new technology because the buzzword is hot, piss off and stop wasting money. If it means keeping a few bright people on the cutting edge, investigating whether new technologies can improve overall corporate efficientcy, then by all means YES.

If it means investing zillions of dollars for the eventual Longhorn update and all the new applications that are upgraded to .Net when all the business needs is email and word processing, I still think W2K is sufficient.