IT industry must grow up and focus on business
If IT is to regain credibility in the eyes of businesses it must start delivering on its promises.
Confidence in technology's ability to deliver real value to the business is at an all-time low and, if the IT industry is to regain credibility in the eyes of businesses, it has to grow up and start delivering on its promises.
While new technology is always alluring, it also has the tendency to be immature. And the lessons of the past three years have taught us that it can no longer afford to be so.
IT directors now face an uphill struggle to win back respect from their business peers, having promised one technology silver bullet too many, at great expense to the corporate budget.
There are thousands of medium-sized firms in the UK that have paid a high price for the IT industry's immature attitude to business needs.
They also form the backbone of our economy and represent the UK's commercial influence in highly competitive global markets.
It is therefore critical that we support them with technologies and services appropriate to their particular business needs, to allow them to grow within their markets and meet the challenges of global commerce.
Vendors need to market themselves more intelligently. They should concentrate on selling direct to enterprise customers and leave resellers to interpret their technologies for medium-sized firms.
IT directors must trust resellers enough to partner with them to solve business problems.
This can make the IT director's job more secure because it frees up valuable resources from daily operational tasks to spend on strategies to grow the business.
Users should create partnerships with the channel based on mutual gain, and see the channel as an invisible extension of their businesses.
In turn, the channel must not abuse the trust of IT directors by paying lip service to their business needs while secretly targeting them as juicy prey.
We must focus on the business, not the technology. If we can achieve this, the IT industry will have truly come of age.
However, if we fail, then vendors will continue to under-perform, the channel will shrink as customers hold back from all but the most essential of IT purchases and the IT director's job will cease to exist.
Most important, we will never win back the credibility of the investment community on which the future growth of the IT industry depends.
Mark Simmonds is general manager of the IT services organisation at Anix Group.