Why Technology Adoption Matters – part 3

This is a continuation of the article Deploying software is easy, but realizing value can be hard.  Why technology adoption matters.

In this article, I’m going to focus on the 3nd and largest segment.  The Enterprise.  When you think about the technologies your company is using right now, the ones that ‘help keep the lights on’ financially, what are the top 5?  You should know this, because everything else is supplemental, and your budget should reflect that.  In fact, the battle that rages on the desktop right now between Microsoft, Google, Cisco,  and a few others is predicated on each company’s belief that their technology addresses the productivity and ROI needs better than their competitors.  In fact, it’s not uncommon for organizations to use products from several of these companies, cherry-picking the optimal basket of solutions to meet their needs.  But I go back to my original question: when you begin to evaluate each investment and solution, which are the ones that are absolutely needed and which are kept around for political, IT stagnation, cost/complexity to migrate or other reasons?

When meeting with customers to discuss technology and/or business productivity optimization, I’m frequently asked to help them decide what to do.  My first response is always “I don’t know what you should do.”  Why?  Well, in many cases I know relatively little about what their business objectives are, and don’t want to provide an answer that sounds great but holds no basis in factual evidence.  And, I’d like to believe that they are where they are purposefully – who am I to assume otherwise without investing more time for research.  But what I do tell them is this: “If we meet a year from now, and you are still using the same technology solutions you are today, and are no closer to understanding why, that’s a problem.  So let’s roll up our sleeves, and start discussing why you use what you use, and how we can optimize your environment.”  Because progress waits for no company, and your competition may already be on the bus.

Adopting technology at the enterprise level requires a senior-level commitment to squeezing every ounce of usefulness from the resources available, whether it be personnel, hardware, software or services.  That’s not to say that, for example, running Windows 2000 and Office 2000 is ok, because that’s stupid.  Nor is it a badge of honor have a HW refresh rate greater than 3 years.  (sidenote: If your CTO justifies your company’s position as being a ‘technology laggard’, fire them).  Rather, it’s about making investments that follow 3 basic ideals:

1. Aligns with Technology Roadmap.  Purchasing technology for the sake of having the latest and greatest is not practical in this economy, no matter what the vendor tells you.  That may work for the consumer market, but do you really want to spend today’s dollars on something you aren’t prepared to use?  Especially now, where the cost to implement solutions continues to be driven down by competition and innovation.
2. Measureable Value.  Measure twice, purchase once!  I’m not suggesting you have to hire a small team of MBAs to create massive spreadsheets and interview every mid-level manager in your organization.  Some of the best, most insightful evaluations of value I know of have been put together over a couple of sandwiches during a 2hr team meeting.  I go back to the importance of knowing what the business values, and creating a scorecard to measure the worth of investments against that.  What’s great about this is that it leaves no room for politics or bias – the nemesis of productivity.
3. Integration & Migration.  How well does it integrate with the systems and solutions currently in use?  What tools, services and resources are available from the vendor to help migrate data (if necessary)?  The speed with which innovation is happening, and the need to insure investments quickly return value obviates the need that they all work together well.

So it’s taken a while to get to this point, but I hope it has been an interesting topic.  To summarize: technology investments have to make a measurable difference in how business is conducted.  It if doesn’t, why have it?  Build deep, collaborative relationships between IT and the business.  Challenge vendors to prove the value of their products, and invest in your success.