For the last twenty years or so, anyone who has worked in an Enterprise IT department have had various traits drummed into them and if the Business has not got the IT department that they want, it is not just the IT department's fault.
IT Managers have accounting principles banged into them; almost more so than any other department apart from the actual Finance department. In almost no other department apart from the Finance department are the concepts of TCO, ROI etc really understood; we deal with rapidly depreciating capital assets which also attract huge recurring costs. And unless IT is your core business, these are not seen as adding real value to the Business but a cost.
IT Managers also become pretty expert in the area of contract law, leasing law and many other forms of corporate law; at various times in my career, I have been involved in drafting complex support documents, negotiating penalty clauses, get-out clauses, payment schedules and other minutiae which I had no intention of getting involved in when I decided to do IT.
Innovation within Enterprise IT often comes second to day-to-day keep the lights on which is all kind of sad because most IT guys I know have a ton of creativity and ideas on how to improve IT. A lot of people get into IT because it is their passion and their hobby.
However, perhaps the vendors can help with all this and perhaps instead of coming up with fairly trite redefinitions of accepted terms and sound-bites; perhaps they can try answering those questions which they can help with?
So next time an Enterprise IT guy asks the question 'What's the TCO Model?', 'Can you help build the ROI Business Case?'; if you answer the question, you might find that you have a much happier and more loyal customer who will say good things about you? Perhaps you will find a customer who actually has time to listen to your latest product pitch? The New IT will still have to follow all the good financial governance that we are supposed to practise today, so there is no pointing pretending that it doesn't.
Help give your customers the space to innovate and perhaps you can help turn IT departments into the IT partners which businesses need and want now?
