IT Professsionals Need To Build Better Relationships With Other Departments, Report Says

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

IT professionals need to pay more attention to the relationships they have with people in other business units and be less concerned about resources, according to a recent report by Information Week. Although the report focuses on in-house IT departments, VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), and other IT solutions providers might find some valuable information in how to foster relationships with their clients.

The recent Information Week Perception Survey was conducted online in August 2014 from a pool of 330 business technology decision-makers in North America, recruited via email. It was conducted to quantify the differences in perceptions between IT and the business in terms of IT’s performance in delivering services and moving innovation. Study author Jonathan Feldman asserts, “The way that you deliver the news about what can be done is what really crafts your rep. IT behavior, more than resource levels, is what determines IT’s reputation.”

To support his conclusion, Feldman points to survey results that demonstrate that when asked what about the top improvement their company’s IT efforts should focus on, only 10 percent of non-IT professionals responded with “lowering IT costs.” By far the most cited improvement was to work more closely with business units (30 percent). Performance obviously does matter, with 25 percent citing improving IT deliverables and 23 percent citing faster delivery of IT projects, but while performance determines how you are perceived by business partners, performance is also highly influenced by IT behavior in both attitude and expertise.

The study found that almost three-quarters (72 percent) of IT respondents were in total agreement that IT needs to collaborate with business executives to foster innovations, while just 54 percent of non-IT participants felt the same way. Further, 15 percent of those non-IT personnel surveyed said that their companies’ business users were very or completely satisfied with the quality, timeliness and cost, while twice that number, or 30 percent, of IT pros believe that satisfaction is at that level.

In another finding, 44 percent of It professionals say that IT plays an extremely important role in business innovation, compared to 33 percent of business personnel agreeing. These recent figures all represent an increase from the 2012 survey results, however. Meanwhile, when given the statement “IT is integral to the business; we’d be dead in the water without them,” a full 70 percent of IT professionals supported the statement, while only 60 percent of business execs felt that way. And while both constituencies believe that IT is growing in importance, 64 percent of business respondents felt this way compared to 71 percent of IT pros.

Regarding use of resources, according to the report, “Reputation is only incidentally about the resources IT has. It’s mostly about what you do with the resources.”

The full study may be accessed here.