Is Your IT Department a Cost Center or Profit Center?
Most organizations view IT as a cost center; a necessary evil that paradoxically helps the business while taking focus away from the real business of making money.
IT limits access, forces people to switch to unfamiliar systems to "standardize," and pushes for expensive investments in software that others don't want and don't realize they need. You and I may know the value of your IT initiative or software package purchase, but that is not nearly enough. As long as the business views you as a cost center, you will always meet resistance.
It's important to realize that we are talking about perception here. IT will always be on the expense side of budgets. If you work for an IT company, then your contribution to the bottom line may be clearly evident. But if your department is one piece of a large corporate machine that doesn't specialize in technology, then you must prepare yourself for the fact that in a straight bookkeeping sense, IT will be seen as a cost center.
Since you can not change the accounting, you have to change people's perception. The more people in your organization who start to perceive IT as a profit center, the better off you'll be.
Let's be clear: changing perceptions is hard. You can't just blast out one email explaining how great your group is or put up a few posters that say, "IT: a Profit Center!" and expect people to buy it. This will be a process. You, and your entire group, must continually communicate in a way that reminds everyone how valuable your contribution is. Not in a bragging way, but in a way that aligns with the business as a whole.
Here are three tactics to implement to change perceptions:
1) As Often as Possible, Talk in Terms of Business Strategy
Do you know what your company's business strategy is? Some organizations are very public about it; others, not so much. If you don't know, ask your supervisor. If he doesn't know, ask him to ask his supervisor. If he doesn't know, ask him to ask his, and so on. Eventually, someone has to connect with someone who knows. If you go all the way up the food chain and no one can answer it, then your company has bigger issues than the perception of IT.
Once you know what the overall business strategy is, try to think of all your inter-departmental communication in terms of that strategy. This is especially true of major decisions, such as large purchase proposals, major initiatives, or policy changes.
People may not like some of the things you want to do, but if you can clearly demonstrate how it ties into the overall business strategy, they will be hard pressed to argue with you.
2) Tie Into Universal Business Needs
All businesses have common needs. If you can't figure out your company's specific business strategy, then tie into one of those needs. They include, but are not limited to, increased sales, improved productivity, reduce downtime, and improved morale. If you can articulate what you want to do in terms of those goals, you will be much more effective.
For example, if you want to invest in a new but expensive firewall package, rather than focusing on the technological superiority of the product, address the fact that with the better protection it provides, this package will reduce downtime across the entire company. If you are meeting resistance standardizing on a platform or operating system, don't focus on how much easier it will be for your team to troubleshoot and work. Instead, clearly point out the many ways that this standardization will make the business units more productive in their jobs.
If you can't immediately think of ways to tie your objectives into these goals, spend some time working on it and talk with others. If you still can't think of any ways, then you need to rethink whether the initiative is truly beneficial.
3) Monetize When Possible
All companies ultimately care about money. This may sound mercenary, but it's the way it is. For-profit companies obviously are looking at maximizing profit. Non-profit organizations need to make money and reduce cost to stay alive and achieve their goals. If you can put real dollar amounts on your ideas, to show their true value, you will immediately start to move IT away from the position of "cost center."
You can't argue with numbers. Say you want to purchase a software package for $100,000, which may seem like a big investment for your team. It would be one thing for you to say, "this is a great package, and everyone will benefit from it by being more productive." It would be entirely another if you could demonstrate how in the first two years this package will save 1 hour a week of time per employee across the company, and how that one hour a week translates into $1,000,000 of salary. Now you are trying to convince someone to invest $100,000 to save $1,000,000 -a much easier task.
Remember, the transformation from being perceived as a cost center to a profit center may take time, but ultimately, with persistence, you, your IT team, and the entire organization will greatly benefit.
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