On Tap Blog

Will the IT Manager Become Irrelevant?

  

  

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The next 12 months will be an important time for many IT managers and IT professionals looking to solidify their future careers in the industry.

In my twenty years of IT outsourcing experience I have always felt that IT Managers should concentrate on IT initiatives strategic to the business and outsource everything else.  In my earlier blog article ”Cloud Computing-Business Revolution or Technology Innovation”,  I referenced Keith John of HP and his observations about how the cloud has brought about a business revolution which in turn affects the role IT will play in the future.   Mr. John goes a step further laying out an entirely new model for IT and the likely scenarios for IT Managers that could unfold.

Here are some suggestions to help IT Managers:

In order to survive, IT must transform itself from an asset-focused or technology-centric delivery organization (providing and managing assets) into the central service sourcing control point for the enterprise. This new model would be a service-centric model.

Service-centric represents an advanced state of maturity for the IT function, enabling it to operate as a business function – a service provider, deliberately structured around a set of products that customers value and are therefore willing to pay for.
 
IT must reinvent itself, organizing in such a way that it becomes the central service sourcing control point for the enterprise, or realize that the business will source them on their own.

If it's of value to the organization, the organization is going to figure out how to leverage it with you or without you.
 
To conclude his white paper Mr. John maps out two likely scenarios for IT:

Scenario 1:  IT will ignore the fact that its role is being threatened and continue to focus on the delivery aspects of the cloud.  As a result, many CIOs/IT Managers will be eaten alive, leaving their organizations to spend an ever-shrinking number of maintenance funds while the business invests in innovation on its own.
 
Scenario 2:  IT will adopt the service-centric organization model and become the single sourcing control point for services in the enterprise.  This will lay a strong foundation for embracing the next wave of the cloud and put IT in the driver’s seat for fostering business innovation.

IT leaders will very soon find themselves at a crossroads, faced with a choice. Turning one-way results in changes in what they do and how they do it, keeping them at the forefront of business innovation in a new service oriented economy.  Turning the other way leads them into the maintenance business, rendering them virtually irrelevant to the businesses they serve.

At Apps on Tap we agree that IT needs to change and we want to be part of that new service-centric model.  IT Managers can use a trusted cloud services partner to help in the transition.