Can IT overcome its credibility crisis?
There’s little doubt about what’s driving the rebounding services business: IT outsourcing. A recent study shows 50% of enterprises are either kick-starting, or scaling-up, their IT outsourcing right now. What’s different as we emerge from this crisis, is that the perceptions of IT from the other parts of the business are becoming increasingly cynical in many firms. Many companies are hiring new CIOs with the mandate to “turnover half the dept., or outsource it”, and IT middle-managers are being questionned about the value they are adding to the business. While much of the bottom-layer of IT has already been contracted-out, it’s now the middle layer of IT professionals which is under threat. Some CIOs are already operating under the strategy of hiring a few people who “genuinely get it” to drive IT value, while outsourcing as much of the operational work as they can. However, most CIOs can’t exactly hire 20 people over night who “get it”; firstly, they may only know a couple of suitabl
