[Sigia-l] IT Productivity and Outsourcing

[Listera]

For your weekend-reading enjoyment here's a contentious column by the
always-contentious Cringley, combining various topics recently discussed
here, from Apple in the enterprise to outsourcing to user-centric product
planning:

The answer to IT productivity is to first decide who the customer is, and
that isn't the CIO, it is the CEO and the janitor and anyone in between with
a computer. Once we all agree on who is the customer (something most
organizations never do), then purchasing decisions get easier. Truly useful
products are bought when they are needed by customers. Now there's a
brainstorm. And while you can outsource IT to Boston or Bangalore, today it
is probably cheaper for a good-sized company to hire six to 12 smart people,
empower them, keep their training current, and have them run the IT
organization. A few smart leaders with a good pool of contractors can do a
better job with open source support tools than IBM or any other outsourcing
vendor can with its proprietary tools. That is because your IT department
will better know your needs, and will have those needs at heart IF YOU MAKE
THEM DO IT THAT WAY.

<http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030814.html>

Ziya
Nullius in Verba