There are several departments that fail to see eye to eye with one another. Sales and marketing, managers and employees, and many others. But one that’s particularly unique is the disparity between executives and IT Personnel.
To the executives, they see the involvement of the IT department as a cost to do business these days. A necessary evil. This sort of view is dangerous since it paints the IT department in a bad way without doing anything that’s perceived as negative.
This disparity can be vast and IT professionals could be destined to fail in their current environment. Here is why.
They’re Not Managed At All
The first is to note that executives and business leaders alike think that IT is self-sufficient. You put a team together and let them do their thing. Furthermore, these individuals think that these teams don’t require a traditional management process at all to function.
This thinking process doesn’t work for several reasons.
Regardless of how you’re hiring and putting together your IT department (in-house or outsourced), the team should be working with a defined strategy and objectives that support the overall business plan.
That’s important because it helps you get an understanding of how the team is performing and also what sort of management techniques should apply.
The Executives Have Unrealistic Expectations
Regardless of the size of an organization, some of those members should form an IT department within the business. While hiring one or two IT members is fine – depending on the organization size – business leaders often place unrealistic expectations on them.
There is an expectation that a few members would be more than enough to handle the security of a medium or large organization and that’s simply not true.
It’s not the fault of IT professionals though but rather the assumptions business leaders make.
For example, many aren’t aware that the IT industry has several different disciplines. It’s similar to the surgeon profession. If you broke your hip, you wouldn’t hire a heart surgeon. IT professionals work in a similar situation.
It’s smarter for executives to understand that but also look to hiring a larger group of people or outsource all IT functions to a larger team or MSP.
Their Recommendations Aren’t Taken
Part of the disparity stems from miscommunication and communication barriers too.
IT professionals are a group of highly technical people and so their form of communication is technical in nature. Executives on the hand are more aware of the business impact in terms of costs.
What this means is that when IT departments are looking for upgrades to improve infrastructure, they put together a budget, list the reasons and tell executives the effects of not adding these costs.
Executives on the other hand will look at these things, note the cost and ask if all of this is really necessary.
The plan gets rejected forcing the IT department to make do with what they have. To their credit, IT departments are pretty resourceful; however, when dealing with improvising IT functions, it’s like using a band-aid to cover a growing wound.
IT Isn’t Brought Into Meetings
In other words, the IT department isn’t involved in business strategy or meetings. They’re not being shared the vision of the company at all.
This isn’t helpful because when an IT department understands your business strategy, they’re able to plan accordingly and keep things in mind with the solutions they implement. They’re able to scale accordingly without letting technology get in the way.
Communicate Better
Executives don’t have to be at odds with their IT department at all. By having the teams involved and communicating with one another, better results will be achieved with the IT department.
Mtek Digital Managed Business Service
Mtek Digital provides help with virtually any business technology requirement. From IT services to Web and Video Marketing, we’re capable of servicing the tech industry throughout Canada. Contact us today.