IT Infrastructure Questions

Still stuck with bad processes and high-maintenance legacy systems? Here are five questions that will help you determine and sort your priorities.

• Is your company’s infrastructure helping or hindering your company’s …
  M&A options and plans?
  New-product and speed-to-market strategies?
  Efforts to implement new technologies that deliver a more unified, holistic view of your customers?
  Depending on your company’s business strategy in the coming years, a response of “hindering” to any of these questions might put your organization on the defensive when faced with competition from third-party providers.
• Do you have metrics to prove that your IT infrastructure delivers value to the company?
  If not, you’ll constantly be competing on costs, which won’t give sufficient emphasis to the value you provide.
• Can you respond effectively when outsourcing providers tell your CEO that they can take over your company’s IT infrastructure and cut costs by one-third?
  This scenario will be a continuous challenge in the coming years. Developing an effective response is a necessity. At what point do you hop on the outsourcing bandwagon, too? Educate yourself now about all the options.
• Is your company’s IT infrastructure group considered an equal partner with other technology areas and business partners when developing new technical capabilities?
  If not, you run the risk of being considered simply a commodity rather than a strategic differentiator.
• How comfortable do you feel about achieving the financial targets set for IT in the coming year? In three years?
  There will continue to be sources of savings within IT. However, they often will come from new sources that have to be built into future IT plans.

Source: Overcoming IT Ambivalence by Jeff Hughes / Optimize, December 2005, Issue 22

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