A few days ago I happened onto an AM radio interview where a former Chairman of a government agency that relied heavily on IT was being interviewed. In it he was asked among other things what he felt were relevant qualifications for the incoming Chairman. He bluntly said it would be prudent to do away with the current qualification of being a lawyer and instead hire someone in Information Technology.
Previous to that, I had also listened to a TV interview years ago where an industry analyst mentioned that according to statistics, 80% of local IT projects (in either government or private, or both, I cannot remember) were unsuccessful.
The mind boggles at the number but upon reflection I have to agree.
If that does not convince well enough, take a random article for example, when I googled ‘top emerging businesses 2015’, Number 1 result is this article that mentions several ideas that were either in IT itself (Kid Friendly Apps, Software Trainer, Smartphone repair), or uses IT heavily (Consulting, Employee-monitoring Services, Testing Business, Business Services, etc.).
How Did I Come To This Conclusion?
I had attended many meetings where IT projects were being treated as a side item, something that will go on in the background while they go about their normal way of doing business. No one in the table realized that a properly managed website / app / customer interface plus well trained, motivated people, CAN BE THEIR NORMAL way of doing business, and that nearly every aspect of how they do their work from there on will either be improved if not completely revamped by IT. No one except possibly the IT people can foresee that happening, but they were either too junior or felt it was out of their place to push for such a change.
I have encountered this situation often enough for me to conclude it as pervasive and constant. The impact IT can have on a typical retail business for example, ranges from the simple – such as encouraging customers to use an interface (website, app, kiosk, dumb terminals, etc.) – to the typical, such as making sure that interface is truly easy to use (use Tagalog, use as few clicks as possible, make sure all products are available for purchase, etc), to the complicated, such as choosing payment gateways and assuring security.
All such decisions no one other than a CEO steeped in IT could and would put in effect. A person who primarily lives, eats and breathes the Internet while at the same time having a firm grasp of Marketing, Logistics, Customer Support, HR and Accounting, many of which can be outsourced.
I mentioned a retail business as an example because it is a common activity we can all relate to. However any organization that needs to communicate and interact with remote agents, suppliers, internal staff or the public is automatically a candidate for an IT overhaul that will streamline and simplify operations, (especially the government agency I mentioned in the first paragraph).
The Challenge
Of course, finding a person like this is easier said and done. It’s hard enough to find someone capable per se, let alone having an IT qualification plus managerial skills.
I have seen many local CEOs with ‘IT backgrounds’ whose only qualifications was that they had worked in an IT multinational but often in a non – coder capacity, or even worse, looks ‘techie’ because he immediately buys and uses the latest gadgets. That is about as IT as saying a person is an auto mechanic because he watches a lot of car shows on Discovery Channel.
You do not have to look far for inspiration. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft are all business started by and primarily run by coders. These guys started by writing code, were aware of what it could do and were lucky enough to have people back them up with funding even before their products were mature because investors, many of which were also coders, saw the future in what they were doing.
While many were not particularly manager material, such as Steve Jobs and his fanatical need to have everything in a certain way so much so that he was fired from Apple, or Google founders Page and Brin who grudgingly realized they had to hire a business manager to run the day to day, business clearly improved well enough so as to solve what non – IT issues came up. Like many business owners know, as long as they are in the black at the end of the day things will work themselves out.
But finally, the bigger challenge is to change one’s point of view that running a successful internet project is a separate enterprise onto itself. Running a successful internet organization IS running a successful organization PERIOD. A true CEO techie, one who has experience at the code level, knows that IT is the way to do business today. Not just a side project and certainly not just something to help keep the appearance that they are ‘hi tech’.
If your business is not making use of the IT as much as it should then it is not as successful as it should. The faster one can recognize this, the faster you can make use of what technology can bring to you.
If you want to talk about how the ‘net can best help your biz, email me [email protected]
