Achieving true alignment between the various IT relationships within an organization can be extremely difficult. But businesses need to keep alignment as a constant objective if they want to put an end to wasteful spending in the IT budget. A common dysfunctional relationship that plagues many businesses is the one between IT, sourcing and business end users during the IT purchasing process.
If these three groups are not on the same page and lack procedures to guide them through new IT investments, money will be lost. Consider the following:
A large enterprise wants to make significant IT upgrades. Vendors may contact end-users directly to work with them on a solution that they may be interested in. Once the end-users decide that this is the solution that they want, they go to IT to let them know. IT probably knows very little about the solution or if it will even work with the company's current IT infrastructure. But, because the end-user is adamant about this particular solution, IT must scramble to make it work without having the time to benchmark pricing or gain insight for negotiations.
More often than not, these dysfunctional relationships result in the company overpaying for solutions and receiving less than ideal terms. Worse, they will probably have to spend more money on additional services to properly implement the technology since they did not have the time to do any research beforehand.
But this all could have been avoided if IT, sourcing, and the business end-users had achieved alignment beforehand. Vendors will always take advantage of this type of dysfunctional relationship and use it to charge above fair market value for their products. Organizations need to understand that all three groups are equally important because they each offer their own knowledge and expertise necessary to making smart IT purchasing decisions. Once they are all able to collaborate and integrate their unique skills into a strong aligned strategy, overspending will be minimized and IT purchasing will be optimized.
If these three groups are not on the same page and lack procedures to guide them through new IT investments, money will be lost. Consider the following:
A large enterprise wants to make significant IT upgrades. Vendors may contact end-users directly to work with them on a solution that they may be interested in. Once the end-users decide that this is the solution that they want, they go to IT to let them know. IT probably knows very little about the solution or if it will even work with the company's current IT infrastructure. But, because the end-user is adamant about this particular solution, IT must scramble to make it work without having the time to benchmark pricing or gain insight for negotiations.
More often than not, these dysfunctional relationships result in the company overpaying for solutions and receiving less than ideal terms. Worse, they will probably have to spend more money on additional services to properly implement the technology since they did not have the time to do any research beforehand.
But this all could have been avoided if IT, sourcing, and the business end-users had achieved alignment beforehand. Vendors will always take advantage of this type of dysfunctional relationship and use it to charge above fair market value for their products. Organizations need to understand that all three groups are equally important because they each offer their own knowledge and expertise necessary to making smart IT purchasing decisions. Once they are all able to collaborate and integrate their unique skills into a strong aligned strategy, overspending will be minimized and IT purchasing will be optimized.
About the Author:
Joseph B. Kappernick specializes in helping Fortune 500 companies save money. He recommends that you visit NPI to learn more about IT cost reduction solution service consulting
