Why IT should be used to support all business departments
- Written by: The Times
Why IT should be used to support all departments and business objectives, not just maintain hardware and software.
Leading IT service provider, TechSpecialist, says it is vital that businesses see IT as a ‘whole of company’ service, not just maintenance of computer hardware and programmes, and while there can be challenges in implementing and maintaining systems that support a range of different departmental capabilities, the outcomes of not doing so are worse.
CEO and Founder of TechSpecialist, Dushern Pather, says it is vital to see IT as a ‘whole of company’ service, in the same way that no two business departments should operate completely separate from each other, but should all work together to achieve the overall business objectives, and ignoring this theory could impact the bottom line.
“Multi-billion dollar venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz has preached for years that ‘every company is a software company’ and we are witnessing this now with the significant growth in cloud and mobile applications, and subsequently their supporting systems, across companies in every industry,” Pather says.
“IT forms the underlying framework for which business departments interact with each other, and while there is a long list of negative outcomes that result from not having IT infrastructure and systems integrated across the whole company, the most impactful and restrictive item is lack of productivity, which directly impacts revenue.”
However, Dushern warns it won’t necessarily be smooth sailing for IT Managers, who may face a range of challenges when trying to customise and maintain IT systems for different departments, capability requirements and business objectives, and that the first challenge is understanding the business landscape.
“The IT Manager must first understand the business processes that are currently used in order to deliver the end result to the customer or end user. Understanding the internal business processes, gaps, pain points, goals and future strategic direction are central to optimising and delivering the best infrastructure and or application to deliver the necessary outcome.
“Some of the challenges many businesses face are dealing with legacy systems and trying to integrate them with newer technology,” Pather says.
“Ideally new and legacy systems should be presented to users via a single interface to optimise the user experience and provide an easily accessible platform for all business functions.”
Pather says IT Directors need to start from the ground up when reviewing or customising their IT systems to ensure all departments are supported and the systems are customised to assist in company growth and expansion, by ensuring that the foundations are in good health.
“The review needs to include the physical infrastructure components that make up the network, the logical components that sit on the physical underlying infrastructure, and making sure you have a well skilled IT team in place that has foundational infrastructure management experience.
“Organisations will either grow this internally or bring in specialist IT skills. It’s critical that the IT team understands the business requirements and are able to bring the IT solutions to life to meet the business needs.
About TechSpecialist
TechSpecialist provides IT services, solutions, consulting and support to SME businesses across Australia, Asia Pacific and Globally.
We are a Managed Services provider with a strong focus on Engineering and Infrastructure management and have built a reputation for offering expert advice, best of breed solutions and delivering as promised over the past 14 years.
Our wide range of IT services and products includes: Servicedesk / Helpdesk Support, IT Support, Cloud Services, Security, Virtualisation, Data Networking, Hosted Exchange, 24x7 Remote Monitoring, Active Directory, Exchange & Lync, SharePoint, SQL Server and more.
