IT staffs must embrace the most pressing problems
IT leaders recognize their future depends on shining a spotlight on IT’s role in business. They must lead on solving key business issues, rather than avoid them. That means IT staffs must embrace the most pressing problems. For example, they could lead in green IT (provide solutions for a virtual workplace), improved customer service (enable new contact-center technologies to provide new touch points), customer/patient/student satisfaction (determine how technology can improve key problems identified in satisfaction surveys), or work/life balance (build the case for video and telepresence to reduce travel.)
A key benefit of this approach: job security. By placing IT in the middle of key problems, business leaders begin relying more upon the IT organization. That results in a higher-profile IT staff, whose opinion carries weight when the company must make tough decisions on strategy, budgets, and layoffs.
