Issue #0619/3 - Few organisations consider RoI as an important business driver and even fewer finance professionals believe IT professionals should handle business-oriented functions.
E-skills in the UK, in its latest report on results from surveys of its 1,000-strong panel of UK-based organisations of IT skills, recruitment and training, reveals that only 11% of organisations measure Return on Investment (RoI) in their IT purchasing activities.
One does have to add the rider here that for a small company to specifically measure RoI may not be feasible.
For instance, while only 11% of both micro and small companies measure RoI, this is not the case within larger organisations. The survey shows that 24% of medium-sized organisations and 30% or large organisations measure RoI. In addition, it is revealed that most of these organisations work in the IT industry!
Undoubtedly, small companies need more information and guidance on how to measure RoI (and maybe even on what it means!). The degree to which RoI is appropriate to any particular organisation may be dependent both on its size and activity but it should not be ignored.
Certainly, when explaining the activities of CharisCo Printer Labs, the material that is published in TCPglobal, and the role of Total Cost of Printing, I have been met with responses such as, “Oh, the cost of printing changes does it?”
To hear people talk of new products or purchases they have made (think of cars or MP3 players!), it is highly likely that too many individuals and organisations make purchasing decisions based on what they ‘fancy’; what is fashionable or ‘cool’; what costs the least to buy in the first place; or maybe what is ‘safe’ and easy; rather than on what will be most beneficial and cost-effective - especially in the long run.
When one considers the scale of savings that can be made by making an informed choice regarding which printer hardware to purchase, this is an absolutely horrendous statistic that suggests that IT managers and directors are severely lacking in business skills.
Perhaps this is why only 1% of finance and managing directors in the UK believe the IT director should be in charge of outsourcing while 83% of IT directors want to be in control!! (Computer Weekly)
The feeling runs both ways - of course. Apparently only 2% of IT directors would place the financial director in charge of outsourcing deals.
Is this typical of management in major corporations, I wonder, or is it indicative of a specific UK malaise?
Feedback we receive indicates that the UK is actually ahead of many other countries in its consideration of a Total Cost of Ownership/Printing model. The US is said to be significantly less advanced than Europe, with professionals in the US likely to laugh at their European colleagues for taking TCO and TCP so seriously.
Does this not suggest that most, if not all, major organisations should be taking significant steps to ensure that their directors and senior managers are receiving regular training with regards to their business skills? It also suggests that IT staff may tend to behave as something akin to a techno-island?
Even more-so though, it underlines that procedures and company ethos should be set in place to encourage inter-discipline cooperation, and to discourage inter-management in-fighting, for the benefit of the organisation as a whole?
Surely a healthy profit margin and smooth-running business benefits all concerned, not just the finance director?
~End~
