There’s always been a significant gap in expectations and reality between IT and lines of business. A recent survey by Softchoice and VMware 250 IT managers and 750 line of business manager across the U.S. shows how big it is these days. All images from Shutterstock
The question is what are you going to do about it? As ITWorldCanada’s CIO found out at a roundtable earlier this year (see below) , some think IT has to get out of the way of business. Others call for IT to work even closer to business units to understand their needs.
How big is the divide in your organization? Let us know below.
The Bad News
Sixty-five per cent of IT managers think their colleagues view them as a help desk and not a strategic partner; 55 per cent think their colleagues view them as a gatekeeper, not an enabler
Squeezed for Time
Seventy per cent spend less than 25 per cent of their week on strategic projects; but 28 per cent think they should be spending up to half per cent of their time on that work.
Mixed Priorities
IT managers said they would like to spend more time on security, maintenance, strategy and help desk in that order. In reality they said they spend most of time of maintenance first, then security, help desk and strategy
Cost, not Revenue
IT has been trying to make sure the rest of the company knows how important it is. But after years of fighting this battle 80 per cent of front office managers still see the information technology department  as a cost centre, not a revenue generator.
Managers Are Impatient …
Seventy-three per cent of business managers think app deployment should take less than a month, 25 per cent think it should take no longer than 5 days.
… But Also Generous
Almost 60 per cent of business manages per cent think their organization should spend more on IT; in fact three quarters are willing to spend more of their budget to do it. That may be because 31 per cent don’t involve IT when purchasing new software for their department. Half of them said they have their own technology budget.
