Managements have learned once again that IT is more than a cost center. IT that is leveraged correctly, with a judicious blend of tactical investment in support and strategic investment with an eye to the future can help a company stay ahead of its competition. IT can unlock value embedded in the company’s data acquisition, help automate business processes, and provided abilities to reach customers where they exist and at their convenience, rather than expecting the customer to come to the company. Recent advancements in fields like Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things have resulted in lowering the barrier to entry for new competitors and unlocked hidden value for the incumbents. It is time to look at IT as an in-house business, responsible for generating its own profits vis-a-vis the rest of the organization and not as a cost center, as was the traditional thinking of the past.
Scalability of Skills & Variable Staffing Model
Companies tried to keep a highly talented skill pool in house and outsource the IT support and development to partner organizations. As time passed, they became more dependent on the partners and the in-house staff like the Enterprise Architects were often focused on compliance and maintaining the peace, rather than bringing much-needed thought leadership to the table. During COVID-19, the best-performing companies have turned out to be those who think of their IT organization as strategic partners and give them a seat at the table during the strategic decision-making process.
Jim Tully, CEO of Blackfish Technologies was asked for his views and replied, “With our new norms, and in light of the economic fear, uncertainty, and doubt, companies are going to do with less. They will have to identify what core and vital, and what is necessary, but not core, and may be best served up through external expertise. We are already seeing this across Healthcare, Retail, and Logistics, and other industries. They need help from partners that will bring in sharp expertise and are willing to invest in their success, much like you might use a lawyer, who is not an employee, but knows your needs, directions, and provides hotspot, necessary services. This defines a new model for variable staffing.”
What Is Coming Next?
“You ain’t prepared for what’s next, neither for what’s commin.”
― Deyth Banger
Starting in May, the world is beginning to cautiously reopen its doors to getting back to normal. While the human toll is coming into focus, the current and future economic damage is still being evaluated. Companies do not know what to expect when they get back to full operations. There will be some winners and some losers and for those who are standing, there is a concern about regaining or maintaining their market share.
For companies to win in this new world, a complete rethink of their relationship with the IT organization is needed, to scale up and down on-demand, balanced with the need to keep IT costs right-sized.
According to a CIO Insight magazine survey in 2013, CIOs considered the following to be the top three key objectives for their organization and in 2020, the COVID-19 crisis may have shown their importance:
- Transforming the IT model from being delivery focused to business-aligned and engagement-focused;
- Increasing the pace at which innovation is rolled out;
- Driving new business opportunities that deliver a competitive advantage.
Faster innovation
Microsoft said that COVID-19 resulted in two years of innovation being squeezed in two months. They had to improvise and roll-out features needed by customers faster than they had planned. Similarly, a research paper published by OpenIA shows that AI compute requirements are improving faster than the rate predicted by Moore’s Law. COVID-19 inspired research is expected to outpace that even further.
Workforce realignment
TCS announced that by 2025, 80% of their staff will be working remotely, from home. The die has been cast and there is no going back. IT teams are going to be much more distributed and remote working will be the new normal
Increased automation
The use of increased automation and distributed teams is probably here to stay. Companies that accelerated their use of data-centric decision making will find themselves far more empowered once markets start turning to normal. Access to data, the ability to gather insights from the data, and data-driven decisions will be key for success.
Better BC-DR plans
Business Continuity & Data Recovery (BC-DR) plans should be revamped to take global disruptions in stock, rather than depending on the cheapest option available. This will drive increased cloud enablement as well as greater automation. There should be enhanced war games and stress testing of the infrastructure to make sure it survives major disruptions.
Better Revenue Management
COVID-19 has exposed the soft underbelly of businesses that depend on customers being present physically at certain locations, rather than going to where they can meet the customers. While retail services dropped to near zero, even essential services where companies provide home delivery or curbside pickup fared much better than those which required them to walk-in, like garment shops. This trend will continue to accelerate and thought should be put in where a companies revenue is derived and where investments should be made to maximize that channel.
Variable IT Staffing From Top To Bottom
IT staff should be right-sized not only for routine functions like development, quality analysis and maintenance but also for delivery of strategic business functions and for roles of trusted advisors. Often, staff members are worried about providing candid feedback to executives for fear of repercussions. Hiring outside skilled partners in a variable staffing model for key roles as Enterprise Architects and CIO’s Leadership Council takes away that pressure. Outside Technical Counsel, like Legal Counsel, can act as a sounding board, can help to right-size the IT department help the executives to focus on the opportunities and threats of tomorrow, rather than the burden of yesteryear or near-term optimizations that do not deliver long-term value
More robust security and increased compliance controls
Moving towards a distributed, work from the home team also meant that there is both greater risk of cyber intrusion as well as of data loss through employee mistakes. Governments are likely to be sensitive to how their constituent’s data is being used and customers will be worried about their privacy. These issues will be addressed through better compliance controls, better employee training and more investment in IT security
A better understanding of the customer
Companies will have a much better understanding of the needs of their customers. They have now realized that the focus should be not just on the Customer Experience but also on the Customer Impact. Engaging with the customer with empathy and providing value that is important to them provides much better synergies than just focusing on how Customer Experience maximized revenue.
Conclusion
“There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full Of Sky
COVID-19 brought challenges with it but for the companies that survived, it also brought opportunities to capitalize on the lessons learned and form a better partnership with customers. It caused disruptions but also brought in new opportunities to understand customers and IT in a new light, as partners. Hiring Strategic Technical Counsel in a variable staffing model can significantly reduce risk while unlocking shareholder value and bring much-needed experience and value to the table.
“You never know what you can do until you try, and very few try unless they have to.”
-C. S. Lewis