1.0 Introduction

The relationship between IT and business is both unique and uniquely important. Getting it right can make a big difference to the long-term success of any organisation. Many large enterprises face serious challenges creating opportunities for the ‘IT aware’ SME to exploit now and in the future. 2.0 Why most firms get it wrong or 'that's IT for you' Most of us are familiar with the jokes and stereotypes attached to IT and the people that work in it. Some of these may be truer than others but their existence indicates a very typical lack of understanding between IT and the business it serves. It's something we've all learned to live with and things seem to get done even though people aren’t always happy about it. What ought to be an unacceptable situation has been made acceptable by low expectation - 'well that's IT for you' - in other words, they don’t get us, we don’t get them, so don't expect any better.

2.0 Why most firms get it wrong or 'that's IT for you'

But why is that the case ? What's gone wrong ? The answer to that question lies in the unique position IT holds within a business. A position so unique that it's just plain misunderstood by everybody.

Let's take a typical firm as an example - say an established law firm. For much of its existence it would have had partners plus support staff - that's marketing, accounts, post, human resources etc. Lawyers do law, marketing does marketing stuff, accounts manage money. Along comes IT, IT isn't the core business of law therefore it must be support so the IT department becomes a new support team tucked away in the basement out of harm’s way.

This view of IT as a support service is very common but fundamentally misrepresents its role within the business. Traditional support services stand alone and operate outside of the core business. Marketing sells the business to customers, HR sends new people to work for the business and keeps existing ones happy, accounts manages the money generated by the business. None of these support departments play an active role in core business activities.

But IT is different. The firm’s lawyers use IT in pretty much every part of the firm’s core business. They write, store and find documents using IT systems. They use IT to ensure regulatory compliance with Law Society rules. If they want to change the way they do business or expand into new areas then you can be pretty sure that these initiatives will be either be enabled - or limited - by the IT systems deployed.

Whatever the business does, wherever it goes and how it reacts to threats and competition will have a heavy dependence upon IT.

3.0 Why it's important to get IT right

You may have read this far and may even agree with some of the points we’ve raised but many will take the view ‘well, things may not be perfect but they’re good enough for what we want.’ Things may be good enough today, but what about tomorrow ? In 2005 IBM questioned a number of organisations in various markets to establish their vision of the future and what they considered to be critical factors for success. One factor and one concern was common to all - flexibility. With the internet, new media, globalization and changing regulation it was perceived that future markets will change rapidly and the ability to succeed will be directly linked to the ability to change with them. In case you’re wondering why ?exibility was also a concern, well these ?rm realised that for their business to be flexible, their IT had to be flexible too. The problem was that 90% of CIOs - and we’re talking big ?rms here - doubted that their IT was sufficiently flexible and sufficiently coupled to the business to react to such change.

There’s no magic bullet for the SME here but by their very nature and size, it’s possible to couple IT to the business in a way that the big boys simply can’t.