To me the role of eye-tee is a very black and white thing. At the core we exist to make the work easier for the end user, the person that does the work of the business. This applies whether you work in an eye-tee department or an eye-tee company.
Almost any business function can exist without us, in some capacity. Granted it is made orders of magnitude easier and more efficient by us. Because of this firm middle ground stance, I sometimes find myself disagreeing with both other eye-tee roles and the business side of companies.
One of my big peeves is when companies separate groups based on revenue generating vs non-revenue generating, typically to cater more to the needs and wants of the revenue generators. Really? If all of the other groups weren't needed then wouldn't you just get rid of them? Revenue enabling or better yet revenue enhancing is a much better term than non-revenue generating.
Consider a brokerage firm, they could still have traders on the floor of the exchange. They may even still be able to run paper tickets and stock certificates. It's conceivable that said traders could survive with little or no technical help. Now surround those same traders with a (non-revenue generating) eye-tee department to bring them the latest electronic advances in trading applications and information consolidation via Bloomberg, Reuters or the like. Will they not be better informed with the latest news and information. Will they not be better servicing the customer by having access to real time exchange data and allowing their clients to view constantly updated accounts of their holdings. If you had a choice between a stock trader working with real time data and one using 20 minute delayed information, which one would you choose?
IBM, like them or hate them, ran an interesting commercial with an analogy about using real time data in decisions. The gist is, try taking a picture of a busy intersection now, then in 5 minutes decide when to cross that intersection based on that photo. If you break it down to that level, technology, when properly implemented and utilized, allows us to make better decisions and provide better service.
Now the flip side. The eye-tee department that views themselves as indispensable and always tries to mold the customer to their way of thinking is no longer making the work easier for the end user. Many a department has lost sight of what should be the ultimate goal and by doing so ends up complicating the ability to get the customers core work done. This is not to say that every decision an eye-tee department or group makes is going to be viewed as the correct one by the business, but if we keep the core goal of helping the business work smarter instead of harder then we are going our job.
-Z
Almost any business function can exist without us, in some capacity. Granted it is made orders of magnitude easier and more efficient by us. Because of this firm middle ground stance, I sometimes find myself disagreeing with both other eye-tee roles and the business side of companies.
One of my big peeves is when companies separate groups based on revenue generating vs non-revenue generating, typically to cater more to the needs and wants of the revenue generators. Really? If all of the other groups weren't needed then wouldn't you just get rid of them? Revenue enabling or better yet revenue enhancing is a much better term than non-revenue generating.
Consider a brokerage firm, they could still have traders on the floor of the exchange. They may even still be able to run paper tickets and stock certificates. It's conceivable that said traders could survive with little or no technical help. Now surround those same traders with a (non-revenue generating) eye-tee department to bring them the latest electronic advances in trading applications and information consolidation via Bloomberg, Reuters or the like. Will they not be better informed with the latest news and information. Will they not be better servicing the customer by having access to real time exchange data and allowing their clients to view constantly updated accounts of their holdings. If you had a choice between a stock trader working with real time data and one using 20 minute delayed information, which one would you choose?
IBM, like them or hate them, ran an interesting commercial with an analogy about using real time data in decisions. The gist is, try taking a picture of a busy intersection now, then in 5 minutes decide when to cross that intersection based on that photo. If you break it down to that level, technology, when properly implemented and utilized, allows us to make better decisions and provide better service.
Now the flip side. The eye-tee department that views themselves as indispensable and always tries to mold the customer to their way of thinking is no longer making the work easier for the end user. Many a department has lost sight of what should be the ultimate goal and by doing so ends up complicating the ability to get the customers core work done. This is not to say that every decision an eye-tee department or group makes is going to be viewed as the correct one by the business, but if we keep the core goal of helping the business work smarter instead of harder then we are going our job.
-Z
"To me the role of eye-tee is a very black and white thing. At the core we exist to make the work easier for the end user, the person that does the work of the business" - I absolutely agree with you!
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