A focus on IT work has arisen recently quite often. We are talking about companies that worked for many years, as "worked." Or about companies that decide to independently analyze how closely they are with best practices and technological trends. Also, understanding the work of IT is also relevant for companies that, against the backdrop of the crisis or simply during their regular work, decided to independently evaluate the degree of work and the level of sufficiency or insufficiency of their IT structure. But, as expected, for the Management and/or owners, often IT is a black box with incomprehensible processes inside, people speaking the “bird” language and, in addition to everything, with fairly high salaries. At the exit from the understandable, most often the words “mail”, “ERP”, “CRM”, clouds, reports... But how to understand at first sight is everything good inside? Have to change something? Even if you don`t understand IT at all, don`t understand what these people do except solving technical issues and programming reports, you can answer a few basic questions by yourself and evaluate “is everything okay with your IT ". Is current IT able to drive the business and implement new trends? Does the IT Director participate in TOP management meetings? If yes, then this is already the path to success. And further question is only in his authorities and competencies. If the IT Director is not “included” in the “board”, this indicates an insufficient effect of IT on processes and weak effect. Do you understand what IT experts are talking about? If you understand the dialogue with IT specialists of any skill level and position this suggests that IT employees are customer-oriented and have an understanding that it is necessary to speak their language with business people. If you hard to understand what about IT specialists are talking and they're also not very interesting for them to convey information is another minus one point in the rating of your company's IT department. Do you have a lot of «excel»? You have an IT Department, you invested in the implementation of accounting systems, CRM and something else the terminology of which is unknown to you but it is expensive. But do you still receive reports or do you generate lengthy and exhausting manipulations with Excel by yourself? This is a problem. And a significant share of responsibility for its occurrence is in IT. And the question is not in excel. The problem is that investments do not return in the form of information processing speed and decision-making tools. Are you generally satisfied with your IT? At first sight the question is simple. But it is necessary to answer it without subjectivity. If you often call technical support, if the company is used to that IT reacts to requests for a long time, if you need to stop the process due to unavailability of IT service, then you should not answer «generally, yes». IT is the foundation of processes, not the minefield. The answer «Yes» should mean that you are confident in the operation of all IT systems, but you are ready for incidents and sure that they will not stop the processes. By answering the questions above an overall picture of satisfaction will emerge. If it does not cause delight «treatment» and deeper audit of the condition of IT are necessary. For detailed and expert review, maturity analysis of the IT Department and IT processes it is necessary to make self-dependent estimates and especially not to evaluate the IT Department, but to involve independent experts. We wish you that decisions come in a timely manner, and the results exceed your expectations!
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