Chad Walter recently asked a very good question that taps into the knowledge core of technology asset management. (It's here: Blogger)
"Does your business drive technology or does technology drive your business."
Great question, and it hides an enormous amount of detail that could easily translate into a unique value transformation of your enterprise technology environment. Here are my comments about how your company winds up spending the bucks on WAY more technology than you need.
The really serious key in this comment is that, with very low-tech, and highly cost-effective, technology asset management processes and procedures, you could reverse the costly trend of reactive buying and put business needs up front where they belong.
After nearly ten years of teaching technology asset management, tech portfolio management, negotiations, project management, and related programs to business professionals from around the globe, I would suggest that - for the average enterprise - technology is not merely driving the business but is also driving their "potential."
Want to reduce your company tech spending and build business value through tech?
Stop buying what you WANT and start buying what you NEED!
Altogether too frequently, an enterprise will contact me with operational problems brought about, not by IT as such, but by a slavish focus on "techno-best" at all costs. As a result, we see too many companies with very costly IT environments that have significantly outpaced user needs or abilities in their capacity.
It's called feature bloat and it means you are NOT in control--the supplier is.
When the users do not use - need - or want - a given level of functionality, then the enterprise has invested money in the wrong technology for its business model. Instead, you are conforming to the business needs of a supplier that convinced someone within your purchase/acquisition process that they MUST HAVE the new product or service.
As a direct result you will find yourself...
Over-spending by a factor of as much as double,
Under-utilization by factors of 10X and more,
Constantly in reactive acquisition mode, rather than strategic acquisition mode,
Paying enormous sums for unnecessary complexity that pushes the limits of your tech support, hardware, and systems compatibility,
Modifying hardware as well as software simply because supplier "X" changed their product to "latest toy" stature,
Sometimes these problems are caused by C-suite personnel who "must have" the latest and greatest at all costs. Frequently, I meet with tech personnel who show me piles of new technology that far exceed the user abilities of the personnel. Sometimes these products were purchased for no more valid reason than "..an executive on the airline was using one and we should have it, too."
Or, the problem can be caused by techies who are under the same impression. Don't forget that techies, God love their strangely assembled brains, have invested a great deal of their time and personal efforts in learning a specific range of technologies. When the provider of that particular technology changes to a new product, sometimes the techs have no choice but to upgrade--or they could lose their certifications.
Now... There's a couple great justifications for business technology acquisitions.
The most common source of problems is a combination of many diverse factors and, in every client environment, we spend focused time sorting these out to find the root causes. But, there is another issue we should consider: As long as the enterprise is channeled into internal technology life cycle management decisions based on external pressures by suppliers, there will be - can be - no resolution to unnecessary IT spending.
In other words: Just because the supplier upgrades doesn't mean your business will benefit from the changes.
Pack all this together and couple it with the fact that the majority of companies simply does not have their own long-term & enterprise-loyal technical team. When all of these issues align the chances are pretty solid that you'll wind up with technology driving the enterprise potential for operational excellence instead of business strategies driving the tech environment.
Somehow, tech BECOMES the business because the business is too focused on keeping up with tech.
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