* Conservative IT cultures late to use many technologies, but risks are low
The past four weeks, I’ve written about recent research Nemertes has conducted about IT cultures and how they affect branch office strategies and technology decisions.
We asked 120 IT executives to categorize their IT cultures into one of four types: bleeding edge, aggressive, moderate, and conservative. The results are part of a large benchmark called Building a Successful Virtual Workplace. We found that equal percentages defined themselves as conservative and bleeding edge, and the majority selected the two middle selections—aggressive (41%) and moderate (33%).
This week, let’s look at conservative IT staffs, which make up about 13% of all participants in Nemertes’ benchmark. They often feel as though they need to drag the decision-makers and the end users kicking and screaming when they deploy new technology. But on the positive side, the technology is generally near-bug-free, well-proven, and lower cost by the time they take the plunge.
Conservative IT staffs are generally part of large companies, with an average of 839 branch locations. But because they already have a large number of branch offices, growth is in the sub-1% range (compared to 51% growth among companies with bleeding-edge IT staffs). Most commonly, we find stable energy companies, as well as healthcare and pharmaceutical companies in this category.
These companies are not always as “virtual” as others. For instance, the percentage of virtual workers is only about 13% (compared to 37% for bleeding-edge companies). Typically, they are so large they run numerous separate divisions and each operates in a large campus environment, which reduces the number of virtual workers. Further, they can afford to hire supervisors in various remote locations, so fewer people are working away from their manager.
We also see among conservative IT staffs small companies that identify their IT departments as conservative. These companies can be quite successful, but they don’t have enough success yet to risk any profit in IT projects.
The bottom line: Being part of a conservative IT staff can be a blessing and a curse. There is no risk in deploying proven technologies, but there is a risk in waiting too long because competitors can use new technology to advance their company.
Companies with conservative IT cultures have the largest number of branch offices. These offices are established and have IT products and services in place. The problem is, there often is little consistency among locations and communications between them is not streamlined. IT staffs must move a bit into the moderate or even aggressive realm and consider new technologies, such as all-in-one branch appliances, wide-area file services, and branch IP telephony, to streamline communications between branch offices.
