Technology No Substitute for Communication
Nov. 14, 2006

As companies seek to optimize their data centers, it’s tempting to focus on technology and the various ways of deploying it to best support the enterprise’s mission. In fact, that’s what this month’s latest article, “The Always Running Data Center” does.

The story discusses approaches to ensure that your data center delivers to the 24x7 expectations of employees, customers and vendors. Thanks to industry standard modular components, companies can now build out their IT infrastructures less expensively and with greater availability than ever before.

To be sure, that's great news. Yet a recent McKinsey report discusses how communication problems between IT departments and business units persist and calls for better integration of IT with business areas.

The report argues that too often IT is isolated from the business and focuses on cutting costs, complying with corporate standards or gate-keeping requests for IT services. The result is that business execs lose touch with technology’s capabilities and IT staff becomes less familiar with the business.

The authors propose several solutions including placing a single leader in charge of back office business services, embedding IT staff with the business groups they support, aligning optimization efforts to support business initiatives, and focusing on IT investments that will deliver a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach for aligning IT with business goals. But as the McKinsey report illustrates, it’s important to regularly assess the relationship between IT departments and the businesses they support.

So, let us hear from you. Does your organization have good communication between IT and business units? Does IT effectively enable business initiatives? Which practices work well and which don’t? We’ll feature your feedback in coming weeks.

Posted by Andy Mazer 11.14.06

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