Getting IT departments to start thinking like service providers is an up-hill struggle; getting beyond cost to value seems to be a leap too far for many. I wonder if it is a psychological thing driven by fear of change but also a fear of assessing value.
How do you assess the value of a service; well, arguably, it is quite is simple…it is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. And with the increase prevalence of service providers vying with internal IT departments; it should be relatively simple. They’ve pretty much set the base-line.
And then there are the things that the internal IT department just should be able to do better; they should be able to assess Business need better than external. They should know the Business and be listening to the ‘water cooler’ conversations.
They should become experts in what their company does; understand the frustrations and come up with ways of doing things better.
Yet there is often a fear of presenting the Business with innovative and better services. I think it is a fear of going to the Business and presenting a costed solution; there is a fear of asking for money. And there is certainly a fear of Finance but present the costs to the Business users first and get them to come to the table with you.
So we offer the same old services and wonder why the Business are going elsewhere to do the innovative stuff and while they are at it; they start procuring the services we used to provide. Quite frankly, many Corporate IT departments are in a death spiral; trying to hang-on to things that they could let go.
Don’t think I can’t ask the Business for this much money to provide this new service…think, what if the Business want this service and ask someone else? At least you are going to be bidding on your own terms and not being forced into a competitive bid against an external service provide; when it comes down to it, the external provider almost certainly employees a better sales-team than you.
By proposing new services yourself or perhaps even taking existing ‘products’ and turning them into a service; you are choosing the battle-ground yourselves…you can find the high ground and fight from a position of power.
