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World-Class IT Org, Or Outsourcing Fodder?

How does the world -- your internal customers, your company's paying customers, your various supplier customers -- view your IT organization? As a can-do partner and service provider? Or as a chronic naysayer and excuse maker? The answer to this simple question will tell you whether you have the stuff of a world-class organization or are outsourcing fodder.

A couple of reader responses to one of my recent posts on CIOs Uncensored got me to thinking about this subject. After I wrote to commend efforts by one Pacific Coast Producers to meet and exceed Wal-Marts 4-year-old supplier RFID mandate, one reader responded with this observation:

"What B.S. A 400 million dollar company does it for a handful of products, and it is sold as a big deal. How much less then 1 percent of its products is that? You make it sound like 100 percent compliance and everybody should do it. It took several years … with that big of a company and you expect small companies to jump on that bandwagon."

Yes, I do expect them to jump, especially when the customer has the size and influence of a Wal-Mart. Whereas the business technology pros at Pacific Coast Producers smell grand opportunities with the world's biggest buyer of consumer goods, this reader expects most suppliers to just turn up their noses.

Another reader chimed in: "The previous guest must be an IT guy. Knows everything except about listening to customers."

Ouch. It's the worst of all IT reputations: that of the dismissive know-it-all. If this kind of customer indifference is seeping into your IT org, cut it out before the cancer spreads. Otherwise, it will take down your organization and even your company.

My colleague Bob Evans got some similar feedback on a recent post in which he suggested 10, mostly customer-centric things every CIO should do. Some readers weighed in with organizational, cultural, and other reasons Bob's customer-focused IT approaches just wouldn't work.

The only response is this: Find a way to make them work.

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