Is the IT Department Dead? 417
alphadogg writes "The IT department is dead, and it is a shift to utility computing that will kill this corporate career path. So predicts Nicholas Carr in his new book launched Monday, "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google." Carr is best known for a provocative Harvard Business Review article entitled "Does IT Matter?" Published in 2003, the article asserted that IT investments didn't provide companies with strategic advantages because when one company adopted a new technology, its competitors did the same."
lack of disadvantage is advantage (Score:5, Insightful)
Pasteurization is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
HEEEELLLLLLL NO! (Score:4, Insightful)
seriously though... There is something to be said for physical presence. I can remote control computers, yes, but when the network connection isn't working, I have to physically get my hands on it. "just ship it out"... 9 times out of 10, it's a silly setting that an even sillier user changed, that they shouldn't have
Respect. (Score:5, Insightful)
There should be a registered apprenticeship, and it should take years to finish. The Certification schools should all be closed down and only true colleges and universities be registered to offer the courses.
If any boss thinks that you could be replaced by a student for $10.00/hr, then there is no respect.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
I know my users are all so skilled.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Though really, it's more like the public transport system. By rights, it should be cheaper and more efficient if everyone used the mass transit system, and we all hopped on busses and trains run by large commercial entities with a monopoly on all transport.
Reality, on the other hand doesn't quite work that way. There are a lot of places that will simply want their own stuff (hey, you control your building and your servers a lot more closely than putting them in a big datacenter, and hey.. What about when your building loses external network connections?).
The world is a diverse place with a lot of different cases. And any company that trusts their lifeblood to another (storing in one datacenter) trusts a little more than they really should.
The IT department, even in the world of datacenters, will still be there. Same as facilities departments, same as every other department, just the role may shift a little.
Re:Respect. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah - electricians are dead too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:lack of disadvantage is advantage (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, substitute "self-propelled vehicle" for "IT department". By his argument, horse-and-buggy delivery is strategically viable for most companies.
Just the opposite is happening (Score:3, Insightful)
If it was, Marc Andreessen would have struck lucky with not only Netscape but Loudcloud. But he didn't, Loudcloud wasn't successful because corporations are not doing this. I can see how it makes sense to Andreessen and this fellow that this should happen. But corporations do not follow this logic, nor the logic of a Scott Adams or other techies who often puzzle at why corporations do things in a way that appears so peculiar to them. IMHO, it does make sense what corporations are doing, the problem is the Andreessens and Carrs and Adams of the world don't fully understand what the purpose of a corporation is.
Re:lack of disadvantage is advantage (Score:5, Insightful)
I also should mention that I take issue with anyone that thinks "...the bulk of business computing shifts out of private data centers and into the cloud." Utilizing "the cloud" requires businesses to give up a lot of control over their data.
I can't imagine big business thinking that it'd be a good idea to put their information security in someone else's hands.
I foresee some movement but.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, these providers will still need employees (the electric company has employees running their power plants), though there's an effeciency that should mean less are neccessairy.
Also, data isn't electricity. It doesn't make sense for all companies to move to such vendor-supplied computing power. Firstly, there's already a decent amount of efficiency in large companies IT / datacenters (it would take as many people from a vendor). A more important consideration from a company standpoint includes control of data security, disaster recovery, etc.
Then there's the need for end-user support and oversight. Sure, the business units could control their directories, and user accesses... indeed they *should*; but illiteracy and simple idiocy is still rampant. They don't. They need their hands held, and they need someone who can protect the company from the results of stupid mistakes.
And with all this we still are only discussing the server-storage side of things. Computers will not be in use in 20 years?!? OK. What will we access Google Apps on? Smart Terminals? I've heard that pefor. You won't need people to install and maintain the computers/smart terminals? There are people here who maintain the lights, and power outlets, and desks; why would these be better/more reliable?
Then there's the networking infrastructure (routers/switches/etc), the actual vendor interation, Auditing (Sorbains-Oxley anyone?). Can a business manager just add anyone to the network? What about cross-unit accesses?
Costs and licensing still needs to be managed. My depatment prints more than a million pages a month. We have two people just to run the printers. Then there's the reliability question inherent in any online software/access.
In the end, for large comanies, at best, we are discussing contracting out data-centers. That's beeen going on for decades.
Anti-Pasteurization (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Depends on the Market (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless, this guy is only partially correct.
Correct: Computing data is similar to electric power generation in that it will be increasingly centralized.
Incorrect: The jobs are just gonna disappear.
In his example, he forgot that there's not just one guy running the power plant up the street. He also forgot the need for power strips, backup generators, batteries for portable goods, stores to sell the batteries, power strips, etc, and of course, your friendly neighborhood electrician.
In other words, yes, there's a shitload of centralization, but it still takes a lot of jobs to get electricity into the consumer's hands. Computing will be no different.
Re:Spurious logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HEEEELLLLLLL NO! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, support functions and basic networking would be a lot harder to ship off to a third party with marginal personal interest in the multitude of operations they would be supporting. Disagree? Then I give you EDS and their infamous Navy IT services contract, and countless other examples.
Re:Don't believe it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Depending entirely on the nature of the business, a lot of companies in some industries have done exactly this.
It makes sense for an organisation with very little requirements in terms of technology - £5,000-10,000 per year will provide a fair bit of consultancy as long as your requirements aren't that complicated, but won't pay much in the way of fulltime IT support staff.
It can also make sense in an industry where every IT-oriented aspect of your business is much the same as any other in your industry and more or less every IT problem has already been solved.
However, for large organisations it's always worth questioning the benefit. Unless your organisation is way overstaffed/overpaid, the outsourcer will require a similar number of staff at similar wages to do essentially the same job. And staff wages are far and away the greatest cost. So unless your outsourcer takes the jobs to a drastically cheaper country, they'll have the exact same costs - that's before you even consider that they need to make a profit.
Re:lack of disadvantage is advantage (Score:5, Insightful)
But I think the best lesson out of this is to beware of anyone making grand proclamations, whether it's this guy or Dvorak or whatever. Let's remember, trolling is not restricted to Internet forums.
Re:lack of disadvantage is advantage (Score:2, Insightful)
Only IT Departments who exist in a vacuum are dead (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway, if I can gleam anything out of the 'IT Department is Dead' type talk, it more relates to IT departments that are disconnected from the overall business strategy of the company. IT as some magic place where webservers and email and database servers live and the people that run them are aloof, hostile and arrogant is done and should be done. The concept that companies need to have a silo of people that just run IT and don't understand how they relate to the various business goals and initiatives is outdated. But, that could and should be said for any part of a company. If I have Finance people who exist in a vacuum and don't give a damn about others in the company trying to get their work done, then they should be 'dead' too.
Technology has allowed various business components to be moved outside the four walls of the tradition business but that has been the case in many other professions as well as IT. For example, look at independent bookkeepers, tax accountants, legal services, production, manufacturing and sales through VAR channels and distributors. But, when a component is key to what you do and how you execute as an organization, you would be crazy to have to outsource the decisions to people not looking out for your best interests. This is why companies have accounting departments, legal departments, etc.
I am sure his book will do well and PHBs will pontificate and assimilate with the 'IT is dead' rehashed mindset like they did with Carr and others dished it out the first time. Well-managed IT resources in any sort of company that are right-sized for the company and have direct reports to the key executive more than pay for themselves from what I have experienced. The whole 'IT is dead' crap is primarily just a way for PHBs to try and rationalize their own personal bad experiences with IT (i.e. the Dell they bought online and they can't get on their DSL or riddled with spyware) or the various failures of projects they have run or been a part of that had an IT element to them but went horribly wrong because of scope-creep and mis-management. Blaming technology and those that tell you it is not wise to proceed down a path is easier than blaming management.
Get rid of the 100 VP "frat house" that is mgt. (Score:1, Insightful)
"LIE, CHEAT, & STEAL (if not kill) to GET TO THE TOP"
Face it: Things today, in "corporate america" are for shit, because the leadership of them doesn't give a damn anymore about building a better mousetrap, & only for profits purely (shortterm usually, quarterly ones)... for their own grossly overinflated payrates, and stockholders, only.
Small wonder people stopped buying U.S. made products, vs. those from other nations (automobiles being 1 example thereof), because cost cuts lead to inferior products, AND SERVICES, period. Everyone knows it.
(And, it only take 1 ROTTEN APPLE, to make the rest of them have to do the same).
Our citizenry in the states is made up of every nation on the planet... & it's not the workers of the U.S. that suck...
Show us a buck, the RIGHT buck, & we'd work ourselves into the grave for it, for our families (we work longer hours than ANYONE on the planet in fact - Personally, for example: I put in CONSISTENTLY 50-60 hrs. per week on salary, & that's not as much as others do @ times).
Salaried pay was the KEY to that shenanigan, & little to no benefits was next, & then UNION BUSTING.
NEW NEWS: It's our "leaders" that suck (& they are QUITE often unqualified dolts there to do just 1 THING: cut costs, & increase profits of stockholders, in the short term, regardless of product or service quality).
Afrer all: We are ALL "expendable assets", right? "AT-WILL" employees... who's will though? Some a-hole that can't do our jobs, much less even NEAR the proficiency we do them at, no less... who earns 2-3x the compensation we do.. & for what?
"creating policy", lol... give us a fucking break!
We are all nothing but "monkeys" (& yes, I have actually HEARD those types calling productive workers that VERY THING) for the dolts @ the top who are the TRUE stooges!
Mgt. stooges who couldn't do the job their subordinates do, to save their lives (which makes sense - most of the mgt. out there today is unqualified on almost every level there is, by comparison to their subordinates).
Yes: Capt. America IS truly dead.
Get rid of each corporation's "100 VP's" instead - OUT with the "frat house" mentality, save money on THEIR payrolls instead... things would work out.
Keep this crap up though? America goes DOWN THE TUBES.
Only some companies can reduce IT (Score:3, Insightful)
IT is a strategic investment (Score:4, Insightful)
Most keep their IT proprietary and in-house. Proprietary for the reasons I've given above. The keep it in-house because they realize that, by outsourcing it, at some point they are going to end up paying consultants for a system and those consultants are free to take the lessons learned and apply them to all their clients.
Re:That attentionwhore tag suits him fine imo (Score:3, Insightful)
He's got a Harvard degree. He says provocative things. He tells managers, CIOs and CEOs that they can ditch their IT departments and save $$$. Of course he's going to get traction.
riiight... (Score:3, Insightful)
IT Depends... (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on what the IT department is doing for the company. If the company is selling hot dogs or pursuing some equivalent activity, then IT is not going to generate value. IT then just supplies administrative tools to keep track of things, and having your own IT department may make as much sense as making your own paper.
If the company is in high tech, research & development, or in an environment where logistics are critical, then IT could make a real difference in the efficiency and profitability of the company. Then outsourcing it amounts to being satisfied with second-rate solutions and a business handicap, because no external supplier is going to understand your business well enough to make a competitive difference.
On the other hand, if that is the case, the company probably should not have an IT department. It should have an engineering department which considers IT just as one of the many available tools to improve the profitability of the company. In many cases IT developments only make sense in harmony with other forms of engineering; a robot needs both hardware and software.
So in a sense, I would back the idea that the IT department as such is dead. If the IT group is just doing IT and not involved in the rest of the company's business, then it might as well be outsourced. If it is an active, fully involved player in the company business, then it is there to stay, but then it is much more than just an IT department.
Re:Depends on the Market (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with outsourcing things like the IT department is that as long as it's part of the business the IT people is "always" there - and they can do some other minor jobs too if they have time. And usually problems are fixed relatively fast. (but not always documented)
In an outsourced environment the user has to log a case and then wait for the outsourced IT department to pick it up. This IT department is probably reduced in personnel compared to the business IT department which means that there will always be a queue. And when the outsourced IT department guy finally shows up he can take a look and say - OH! - That's not an IT department problem - that's a XXX problem and we don't do these... Usually the outsourced IT departments are drained of competence too so you will get the guy with maybe some obscure MS certification but no experience in the business to try to solve your problem.
And it doesn't matter what your agreements with the outsourcing company says - the competence goes down and the overhead of the operation goes up when you outsource.
As a result - don't try to measure your IT department by the means of productivity on their part. If you see them sitting down relaxing - relax - there are no problems. If you can't find them - start to worry. If they are running like hell - it's panic time. See the IT department as the fire department for computer management - they may show up from time to time to do some proactive work. Proactive work usually doesn't look like much - but it may actually make a difference when something happens because at that time they probably know every corner of the building better than most people.
Hardware never fails, software has zero defects... (Score:2, Insightful)
Databases...never crash and never need to be backed up or recovered. They have endless storage in a big commodity hardware "cloud" that is infinite.
I want to live that guy's world. Hell I'll pack my box and head home. Toss the pager and cell phone into gutter and spend the rest of my days sailing. Obviously he has not has his "clue bat" beating yet. Let me write it on a nail and pound it into his tiny head:
Information Systems can not and never will support themselves using nifty corporate speak phrases, like "cloud" and "commodity hardware". There is no great and powerful Oz. It's just another IT staffer behind that curtain.
Hard to know where to begin (Score:3, Insightful)
While there is a point here that IT is changing in radical ways, didn't it always? IT has been a moving target for decades and will continue to be. Doesn't mean it's going away.
There's also the big problem he doesn't even seem to fathom; that any company worth its salt would rather have an IT department of employees. Why? Well, what happens if your primary production database goes down? Well, if you have an army of employees, you'll have an army of people mobilized in an instant to resolve the issue as quickly and reliably as possible because their jobs depend on it. If you have the same happen with "cloud IT" then you've got some call center rep in the Philippines who only knows you as customer X and really doesn't have a sense of ownership of the problem.
I must admit, I work in a Corporate IT environment after years of working as a consultant. I see the vast difference between the mindset of a consultant and an employee as a sense of ownership and a sense of being part of something bigger. Consultants (and cloud IT people) are tactical; they fill a need today. Employees are strategic; they try to do the best job they can to ensure they've still got a job tomorrow. Sure, it doesn't always work out and not everyone's of that mindset. However, I tend to find that those who do not have the strategic mindset tend not to last long in IT.
As much as I'd like to "ride the wave" of Cloud IT... knows I have the know-how to set up something truly great... I don't think it's going to be much more than an interesting aside to the IT industry as a whole. It'll provide some services to companies in the same way as consultants do; they'll fill a need in the interim until they can put in a permanent solution. The only place I see "Cloud IT" becoming a force to be reckoned with is the small company; less than 250 employees perhaps... where it's usually not cost-effective to maintain an IT department. A lot of the smaller end of this (100 employees) tend to hire consultants to deal with their IT needs... this won't be that different. However, there'll still be a need for the consultants in question to put in and maintain the local hardware.
But then there's the aspect of reliability; what if you can't get to your applications? Who do you call? The app vendor? Your ISP? The consultant who maintains your routers and may not be available until after 3pm? I know the small companies I still do consulting for like having local IT infrastructure (email, web and file servers) so that in the event something's really messed up and the apps don't work, worst case a phone call to me where I can talk a secretary through rebooting the file server usually does the trick. However, this isn't cloud IT... this is local IT supported by someone who's remote. Doable, but not something you need to rely on for your business!
Re:Depends on the Market (Score:4, Insightful)
Outsourcing != Off-Shoring
Sure, you have to be careful with sending your data to other countries, especially where your home nation doesn't have legal extradition. But don't paint the whole idea of outsourcing with that brush...
Re:Get rid of the 100 VP "frat house" that is mgt. (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right that American workers are among the most productive in the world. Too bad they're just not a little smarter about economics, generally. That whole notion of At Will employment cuts two ways. Imagine if American labor dispensed with their lapdog notions of loyalty and infantile desires for security and took a more mercenary approach to their work instead of letting "the union" worry about that for them.
Pay your own way. You may not ever be completely satisfied with what you get, but you'll never have a chance to be completely satisfied until you do.
IT Dept == Guardian Angels. IT Vendor == Fire Dept (Score:5, Insightful)
While you _did_ mention proactive work, I don't think you give it enough credit.
Proactive IT work is the difference between having guardian angels watching over your company
In my experience, companies that use IT 'vendors,' the out-sourced IT departments, are the ones that have to call 'IT' when something's on fire. Companies with IT departments
IT Departments are likely to make everyone pissed because your email will be down for a few *_MINUTES_* (!ZOMG!! not My EMAIL!~!%!)
IT Vendors are likely to "save the day" after everyone's email has been down for a day and a half ("Thank you, fireman!")
Off-the-shelf not workable (Score:3, Insightful)
I worked at a truck-stop company (Flying J) working on their point-of-sale system. Which, trust me, covers a multitude more sins than you'd care to imagine. This exchange pretty much sums up why IT in a place like that won't go away:
CEO: "So why can't we just buy off-the-shelf software to do that?"
Me: "Because there is no off-the-shelf software that does that. And by the time it's common enough that you can buy it off the shelf, we've had it in production and solid for 5 years."
Example: RFID for transactions. Flying J was starting to do this back in 2000 for the big-rig side of the station. Grab nozzle, fuel, hang up nozzle, take receipt. That was 8 years ago, and you still can't find off-the-shelf systems that do this, let alone that integrate directly into the rest of the POS system.
Re:Depends on the Market (Score:5, Insightful)
R + I > R + P + O + E
R = Required: Cost of work required to do the job in the best way with maximum efficiency
I = Internal: Extra cost due to effort required by Internal staff to accomplish task due to incompetence or inexpertise
P = Profit: External party's (outsourcee) required profit to do the work. ie. The contractor's cut.
O = Overhead: Extra management cost of outsourcing for both the outsourcer and the outsourcee.
E = External: Extra cost due to effort required by External (outsourced) staff to accomplish task due to incompetence or inexpertise
In other words you're gambling that the company you're outsourcing your work to is so much more competent than your own people that even after they've made a handsome profit and after you've paid the overhead to manage the relationship you'll still be ahead paying for the outsourcee's solution.
Now sometimes outsourcing is a good gamble. For example economies of scale in manufacturing mean you'd never ever want to produce 100 office staplers yourself. Forget for a second that your core business isn't making staplers, think of the cost of tooling when producing 100 vs 10 million. Similarly for software no company is going to write their own word processor when there are feature rich off the shelf packages out there.
However for most custom work where a business wants to and is large enough to do things their own way, even if it's not your core business, unless you're going to leverage external expertise (or a code base) that you don't have in house or won't need for long (and therefore can't afford to hire and manage) P + O + E will be much greater than I. Unless of course your in house staff is nonexistent or so brain dead it needs to be replaced.
I understand that I've oversimplified above, but what I don't understand is why people high up in the decision making structure in big business don't understand it even this well. It shouldn't require huge textbooks and research to understand this.
Re:Get rid of the 100 VP "frat house" that is mgt. (Score:2, Insightful)
So long, Mr. Marx. It's been most entertaining.
Re:Pasteurization is dead. (Score:3, Insightful)
1) To whom does pasteurization give a strategic advantage? (Answer: nobody, because everybody has it and it's the same everywhere)
2) Is pasteurization a "career"? (Answer: how many "pasteurizers" do you know?)