About IT and business value

The crisis is a pain. In our business of IT-expertise consultancy weird things happen... The hourly rates are very much under pressure in a lot of cases. Even below cost price is seen...!? Is that because the business value of IT solutions is dropping (and the returns are lower than expected) or is it purely the crisis circumstance that costs are cut.

Both are probably true. But how would we solve that?

(We or) I focus on real business value delivered as soon as possible. Not waiting until the full solution is done, tested and approved. No, what can be delivered and result in actual business value, that must be delivered and used for business ASAP. And then we proceed with adding functionality that will even add more business value. And so on, until the added value will become lower than the costs. This mechanism gives ROI from an early moment and brings business and IT closer together. Narrowing or closing that gap between business and IT

Should IT be seen as costs? In a lot of organisations, IT is one of the bigger elements of the "general costs". But is that smart? In many situations IT is a requirements for the business and even the enabler or even the reason of competitive advantage. Is something that important a "cost"? Is it wise to cut that kind of costs?

Is IT not a main ingredient of normal modern business? Is it wise to increase that ingredient OR to lower it. I'm not talking about the costs but about the power of IT. IT can be applied very effective if you want, then it enables your business instead of being a high cost.

It's a matter of vision and the way we organize our business and it's value.

Become lean and agile and focus on value!

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