Politics and the future of IT

As the saying goes, all politics are local. This adage seems to be true, even for Global 2000 companies with thousands of IT components cast around the globe.

In the second part of a blog series that examines future directions for IT, Arthur Cole commented, “…rather than simply deciding which box to plug in where, more and more CIOs are finding themselves at the crossroads of competing strategic influences.” I contend that strategic influences sometimes clash with local politics.

IT organizations invest big money in consultants to develop the perfect criterion by which to evaluate a short list of vendors. Features and functions, ROI and even compatibility or integration with the existing environment, usually top the list. However, unlike the binary or rules-driven logic of the technology so central to our livelihood – whether a consumer or supplier – as humans, there is always an element of subjectivity in any decision.

Political influence extends far beyond the classic case – where an enterprise architect by way of design mandates what tool IT operations will use for monitoring – to the affinity individuals develop for specific brands or products. Some have invested so much time and effort into a given tool or project, in many ways their careers are intertwined, even dependent on its success.

As a result, over the many years I’ve been selling software, I’ve sometimes won and sometimes lost as a result of this phenomenon. In some cases prospects with a bias towards a rival product have effectively killed deals – and on the other hand, I’ve observed some of my customers rise quickly through the ranks based on the results they were able to achieve with our product.

In either case, politics is most certainly and dynamically linked to IT.

-- Randy