How IT adds value to your company.

Photo by Luis Gomes: https://www.pexels.com

We all know IT plays a core role in companies now-a-days, however, few (except technological companies) fully understands the true of IT value to your business.

In the Digital era, IT became the cornerstone for the businesses. IT is so impactful that even other departments have had to add IT skills to their functional areas. IT used to be “easy” back in the eighties and ninethies, however, as technologies evolve we have to evolve too and leave some skills behind us to learn new ones.

These new skills are the red point for every IT professional. We are self-pressed to learn new technologies, new methodologies or even new soft-skills to “satisface the company requirements”. Believe me, its very stressful.

Since IT has to deal with current company technologies and at the same time work hard to upgrade them, the time constraining makes this job a very interesting challenge.

Allowing IT to have the time and resources to continuously improve the company’s technology is a valuable asset to strategically drive the business to the success.

Supporting IT migth be somehow overwhelming for non-IT people since is really difficult to understand the IT world and why we do what we do.

According to my experience, most of the non-IT directors/Chiefs fails to understand the IT needs and most of the IT Directors/Chiefs fails too to explain in plain words why IT requires such and such investments. Remember: If you can not explain it, you can not be trusted. This is a misunderstanding loop that has the parts trapped out in every company. IT evolves so fast, that by the time we understand AR, we now have Cloud Computing, then Blockchain, then AI, then Edge Computing, then bitcoins, and so on. That is why is really complex for non-IT people to catch all these new technologies.

Now, let’s to describe how IT adds value to your company.

Business Innovation. 

IT is constantly changing around the world, the IT Management/Direction is the responsible to add innovation to the businesses to add value to the product or service provided by the company. Generate new solutions, requires time, effort and patience; our value stands in have the ability to use the current resources to create new solutions for the company challenges. We are usually dealing with the introduction of new products to the companies, changing processes, automate repetitive tasks, and, as a matter of a fact, attach new technological products (either hardware or software) to the current infrastructure sometimes requires a new envision of the IT perspective.

Integrates Technology.

IT has the beautiful challenge of integrate old and very old, then the oldest technology to the new, the newer and the newest technologies. Companies direction and management have the challenge to add these new technologies in order to increase their productivity and tools to compete against the world, however, we in IT must be particularly careful to select the new technology for our companies. We could fall into pitfalls that could have an important impact in the IT budget, company financial system and even open a hole in our cybersecurity system.

Lead Digital Transformation.

Digital Transformation is often driven by the IT department or any other IT related area, we have seen companies opening the Digital Transformation Department (or Manager/Director). IT develops and directs (too) the Digital evolution in companies. Leading Digital Transformation is one of these new waves where IT plays an important role, even if IT is not directly responsible for this change, we are usually a pillar in this important process.

Data Management and BI

As you know, data now-a-days is one of the most valuable assets for companies. Having data storage secured and remotely accessible for the employees so they can process it is an essential task. IT and the teams that surrounds it (Servicedesk, DBAs, Devs, NetAdmins, Cybersecurity Engineers, etc.) create the whole “ecosystem” to have the rest of the users able to browse their requested data and feel confident they are working under a safe environment.

Business Continuity.

Directors and CEOs are usually worried about the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans.

IT has to have a plan for it, if you don’t know how to build one, keep reading us, we will submit one article describing how to create one. (comming soon).

DRP and BCP works together to ensure the company can continue providing the product and/or service they sell, either by brick and mortar or online. So IT plays this important role too in this matter.

Reduce Operation Costs.

As an IT leader I have implemented several projects where the cost of the services or processes were significantly reduced. Software development processes, network infrastructure, telecommunications, ERPs, Voice services, Licensing, and a variety of products or services that have reduced the business operation costs.

As you can read, IT provides these and a lot of more value to your business, that is the reason why the smartest companies support their IT teams to a level where they can provide new solutions to complex requirements. As part of the business strategy, IT should become the driver in the innovation and technology support for the companies, creating a competitive advantage and increasing the company profits.

~Bitvorous