A lot of non-tech companies treat IT as a cost center and that can lead to short sighted decisions that cost them a lot in the long run (or more accurately, they fail to realize benefits that were available to them with appropriate investment).
But it seems counter intuitive that this effect can be worse for some tech companies, where a major part of their business involves convincing clients to treat their tech as more than just a cost center.
Like, you have an entire staff compliment of developers, architects, PMs, engineers and customer service staff, and your own entire ICT practice is a disaster? HOW?
I ended up having to draw people's attention to it by pointing out 'this is your single biggest client, and receives the least attention of them all'.
Loops into the old 'eat your own dog food' wisdom, but from an angle that seems to often get missed.
Because of this mindset, companies who decided to outsource IT as an obvious cost optimization realized how their company actually runs.
Specifically that there are huge off-the-record operations (outside of the ticket system). The more VIP the problem is, the less tickets.
And suddenly, the people supporting them (particularly if they were outsourced but stayed in the company as contractors, and were pissed off) had one sentence "open a ticket". Doesn't matter if this is the CEO asking, or something "urgent", ticket it is.
And the gates to hell opened.
Source : me not being IT anymore (huge company) but strongly advocating against the outsourcing (pointing to the above), and then taking a backseat and watching the world burn with popcorn in hand.
But it seems counter intuitive that this effect can be worse for some tech companies, where a major part of their business involves convincing clients to treat their tech as more than just a cost center.
Like, you have an entire staff compliment of developers, architects, PMs, engineers and customer service staff, and your own entire ICT practice is a disaster? HOW?
I ended up having to draw people's attention to it by pointing out 'this is your single biggest client, and receives the least attention of them all'.
Loops into the old 'eat your own dog food' wisdom, but from an angle that seems to often get missed.