Telescope: IT as a revenue centre! Ridiculous!

MUMBAI, INDIA: In advertising, there’s an old but tried and tested trick called ‘contrast effect’. If everyone is using colour ads, print a black-and-white one. If others are using loud jingles, go for a mute ad. If visuals are the way the tide is moving, go for a long copy. The contrast technique often works. At least, in getting strong attention.

But when Andy Kyte, Gartner Fellow, Applications Strategy tells you that the idea of turning IT from a cost centre to revenue centre is flawed, or that too much focus on usability does more harm than good; of course you can’t help but pay attention, but then there’s more. It is not just an eye-popping sentence but something that also bounces off some universal assumptions we have never questioned so far. He takes you back to the ‘The world is not flat’ era and make sure we enjoy the ride while he proves his anti-hypothesis.

Being an applications expert, are there any new trends you can spot in this space?

The complete road of IT is achieved through applications. Fundamentally, IT is just a means. Anything you want to do in business, happens through them. So demand for applications is growing dramatically and we are not able to satisfy this demand because of capacity of technical teams. Many applications are large and complex and so many organizations are struggling with bloated application portfolios that are difficult to manage. Also, it is not a self-healing environment. Every year these portfolios get difficult to manage. So we are advising application overhauls.

What is the key problem here?

When people think of applications, they think of initial costs, which is mainly acquisition cost and not TCO. Almost 92 per cent of cost actually comes after the project goes live. System integration is another huge challenge, specially when it comes to dealing with legacy applications, as they have become obsolete.

Talking of obsolescence, does Moore’s law apply as strongly today?

Computing power will get cheaper is what it says. But if that’s the case, why is IT not free by today? May be it is because the demand for application power grows much more and faster. In a long-term view of IT, we have won. Thanks to applications that can handle and replace the old ways of working and processing.

Would Cloud redefine applications in a major way?

The only impact it would have is that in future, applications would be available in a number of sourcing models — on-premise, BPO, Cloud etc. Portfolios would be heterogeneous. Emerging architectural challenge would be around integration.

So would the build-vs.-buy dilemma change in view of applications?

Build-vs.-Buy was an old argument. New argument adds the ‘subscribe’ and ‘configure’ options to it. Unfortunately people buy and customize, which is expensive in shot-term and very expensive in long-term.

Customisation is bad? But it’s a major peeve that many customers talk of when they talk of vendor gaps?

Yes. Because, every time you customize, you make the product difficult to upgrade to the next level. Plus you are locked out for next releases. Customer invents needs of customization.

Isn’t this thought a contradiction to the big trend around usability?

Some customization is fully justified and pays for itself many times over. But such cases are more of exceptions than the rule. Most customization features are only out of sheer habits. Because people are reluctant to change, even if the new process is a better one. ‘I have done it this way’ is the rhetoric. So IT gives in to users instead of driving them towards a better, standard process. Very few organizations benchmark their processes on optimization. Many just repeating the way things have always been done.

Usability is a strong need. Are we not throwing the baby out with the bath water?

Usability is ok, but we should distinguish between usability and functional complexity. Adding more fields or options on the screen is customization. But it is complicated. It is not simple. Users are sometimes not the best judges, contrary to what most of us like to believe.

Can applications help turning IT into more of a revenue centre and less of a cost centre?

The idea itself is ridiculous. IT does not crack business deals. IT’s job is to support business in doing that better. It can facilitate revenue generation but can not overtake that area. IT’s job is to deliver efficient applications and to handle critical areas.