The Disconnect Between Management and the Value of IT 333
DavidHumus writes "According to a Wall St. Journal article top executives at most companies fail to recognize the value of IT, having a tendency to think of information technology as a basic utility, like plumbing or telephone service. The article lists five primary reasons for 'the wall' between IT and business: 'mind-set differences between management staff and IT staff, language differences, social influences, flaws in IT governance (defined as the specification and control of IT decision rights), and the difficulty of managing rapidly changing technology.' Does this fully explain the extreme lack of understanding of IT at high executive levels? The article is even-handed in apportioning blame but touches on a few good points. In particular, how '[m]ost top executives ... think of IT as an expensive headache that they'd rather not deal with.'"
On the other side of the wall (Score:5, Funny)
Re:utilities are important (Score:4, Funny)
Re:On the other side of the wall (Score:3, Funny)
We dont just think it, we know it!
Re:The value of IT to most businesses... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:utilities are important (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bad comparison (Score:3, Funny)
I'd suggest that there are often times that those can be applied to the needs associated with the toilet.
Re:The Cost Of IT (Score:2, Funny)
You totally failed to include plumbing analogies in your post.
When you originally started the business, you only needed a single restroom with a small sink and a toilet. When you hired a few more women, they started complaining about guys and their aim. To satisfy the demand for more restrooms, you added a second restroom so that you could have a Men's and Women's restroom. As your business takes off, you add more and more people and you add more stalls to the current restrooms. Perhaps a second and third floor with restrooms on each floor. Now, you've got so much water coming into the building that you can't get enough water to flush the toilets on both second and third floors at the same time so you add more pipes. Then, sewage drains can't keep up (and start backing up into the basement), so you add more sewer lines.
Now, you're complaining that you need to upgrade the restrooms every three years and can't understand why plumbing costs so much.
Re:Maintaining the pretence of superiority (Score:4, Funny)
It's how much you can swallow.
Re:On the other side of the wall (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The real problem is that IT is hard (Score:2, Funny)
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phalanx :- launch a large block of andersons at the problem
glittering :- the andersons are so expensive you'd expect them to be gold-plated
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An anderson is one of the many faceless employees of Anderson Consulting.