Top ten weird reasons to change

INDIA: A Doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines, Frank Llyod Wright once remarked.

But what about IT guys? Skeletons or Grapevines?

Alas, the verdict is still awaited there.

Meanwhile, if you have been buried in the daily funerals of IT fatigue, monotony or being the punching bag of everyone around you, it's time to pull up your socks and run.

Not in the opposite direction pal. Run towards your fears.

Grab that PowerPoint slide and strut towards your CEO or whoever it is who holds those strings.

Open the door with a bang, enter like a Bollywood hero, look them in the eyes and say it like you mean it "I want to change this software application. I want to invest in something new."

But then, may be, as conditioned, discreet and well-planned as you usually are, you might just turn around and stare here first to ask - But why?

Good question.

Skip all the IT rigmarole, technology gobbledygook for a minute and try some run-against-the-mill reasons for a change.

(Did we just say the word, oopsie daisy!)

Reason 1: You need to migrate to a new system because everyone is bored

People crawl to office and they run back home. Why? Not because work is not as much fun as the traffic back home but because the computer interfaces they sit and stare at for hours are getting too familiar. No bugs to use as excuses. No design goof-ups to blame. It's been long since this system is in place and it works so smoothly that, let's face it, it is oh-so-boring.

Why not give your staff and everyone else a reason to stir up some new storms in their coffee cups. You enjoy the chaos days, right?

Reason 2: You haven't used the conference room for a while

And those cookies too. With everything in place, and running just fine, and no fire-fighting alarms for months, it's been long. Long since you and your staff have corralled around that big conference room and debated in hushed tones as in a war-room scene.

The marketing and ever-so-arm-chaired HR guys do so many meetings and sessions that it irks you and makes your team squirm with a step-child complex. No time being jealous. It's time to snatch your right. Not with a gun, but with a click. Conquer the conference room with this new project. Attack!

Reason 3: It's free PR

Don't blush while you think of it. We know how it feels. The spotlight, the attention, the momentary-yet-huge mention of IT in a press release. The day you announce a new system or migration, it makes for a great ink to run all over a company's PR grist mills.

These are times when one has to shout and let the world (and that nasty competitor) know that even you are tech-savvy. A new project makes for a lovely headline, so go ahead and scribble it all over.

Reason 4: You have been drooling over that Budget pizza

But austerity cuts, rationalisation and all the fiscal balderdash has often scrambled to sideline your team as the first scapegoat. As perceived by many, CFOs do not even acknowledge the IT function's requests during cost-chopping fits.

How to squeeze out a portion of those delicious budget bread crumbs, then?

Simple. Make a serious-the-sky-is-falling kind of presentation with huge bullets of how a business runs the perils of being left out if this new software or solution is not deployed.

You might just get lucky, or get heard.

Reason 5: If I can't bite it, no one else will

Let us take you through a horror movie script first. Brace up, hold your breath and hear this eerie echo:

1.Twelve years ago technology spending outside of IT was 20 per cent of total technology spending; it is turning to become almost 90 per cent by the end of the decade, Gartner has already cautioned.

2. Also, much of this change is being driven by the digitization of companies' revenue and their services.

3. Organizations are digitizing segments of business, such as moving marketing spend from analog to digital, or digitizing the research and development budget. Secondly, organizations are digitizing how they service their clients, in order to drive higher client retention. Thirdly, they are turning digitization into new revenue streams. Gartner analysts said this is resulting in every budget becoming an IT budget.

Now come back to the present tense and face the fact that global tech spending in 2013 could grow by 5.4 per cent, as what Forrester has guessed, and you do not want the CMO to be doing it right?

Thankfully Forrester says that 2013 will be a transition year before 2014 growth -- 6.7 percent globally, and all those excuses, sorry reasons the U.S. fiscal standoff, Europe's economic malaise, Japan's non-growth and China's leadership transition etc would side step to let spends get back to the tread mills.

The primary hurdle, though, that still haunts tech purchases since 2008 is that of shrinking IT budgets.

While Peripherals and servers have faced three and four per cent declines, respectively; the rival cousin called Tablet has stole a lot of thunder. Also, CIOs might want to note that software will outperform hardware and services in 2013 and applications like CRM and analytics will take off.

Before the CMO or other cabins elbow out your corner rooms, take a deep breath. Now run, run for your life.

Reason 6: Enough of BYOD, time for BYOB

So what if the proliferation of smart operational technology will increase by 25 per cent as Forrester argues. It's time to Be Your Own Boss.

Let those smart. Yuppie, uber-cool youth know that you are still very much the captain of the IT ship.

It's you who can bamboozle them with a sudden ‘app-from-the-clue' or a new interface or protocol they need to navigate over the next few days at least.

So what if their learning curves are sharp, you can be a blunt boss.

Reason 7: Go and meet your CEO

So what if you only meet him at rare company get-togethers or a golf afternoon? So what if it's really hard to chase him and his secretary for an appointment? It's time you dig that secret tunnel all the way to his cabin.

Predictions from analyst firm iterate that CEOs want their CIOs to make their impact felt where the enterprise meets the outside world. They want the CIO to unleash the forces that will differentiate their business. They don't want the CIO spending all of their time automating the back office, Gartner has highlighted.

As consultant By Marc J. Schiller once rightly stabbed, a CEO doesn't really listen to him--especially when it comes to hearing the hard messages. 

Then let him hear about some solutions.

Ok, no, you have already tried that.

Make him hear about some new problems and make him worried enough to forget all the other really-big problems.

You do not have to please the CEO always. Be bold. Scare him for a change.

Pass the buck, and create a new monster. Then deploy a new system, simple. It will at least guarantee one thing. The CEO will remember your name the next time you bump into each other at a conference or a buffet.

Reason 8: Sneak into the board room

Ah, another finding! Board directors are prioritizing customers, core competencies and competitive advantage, according to the second annual Gartner-Forbes 2012 Board of Directors Survey.

Now, interestingly, half of the board directors surveyed were willing to invest in IT as a means to change the rules of competition, and they had IT as the highest priority for investment in 2012, tied with investments in sales.

Eighty-six percent of respondents said they believe that IT's strategic contribution to the business will increase by 2014.

What are you waiting for? Strike the iron while it's hot. Go. Migrate.

Reason 9: You can't really recall that salesman's name

Do not scratch your head any more. Enough torturing yourself. It's no big deal. It happens to every CIO who has been smart enough to run a well-oiled machinery but dumb enough to forget that it's important to stumble upon vendors every once in a while. They are your only key to escaping the daily monotony. Wow! That whirring smooth sales pitch, that lights-up-your-LEDs smile and that warm handshake! Remember?

Vendors need you. But vice versa, you better note as well.

So go announce that new RFP and do something selfless in the process.

Here it comes.

Reason 10: Give them a valid chance to wrestle

A pitch is the only chance for some vendors to punch each other with new brochures, new discounts and new spiels. Give them a nice, proper place to vent it out. You can watch the fight and plus you can go back with a new system.

So what if you do not really need it buddy. You should something for others, once in a while.

Charity begins at the office, haven't you heard?

And P.S: Mort De Rire