* What drives your business and how can you help?
It’s been a long time since I actively encouraged network managers to get more involved with the business side of their organizations. In fact, I considered that the job was done and everyone was aware of the need to get out of the server room from time to time and make IT – and the network – an integral part of the daily business of the enterprise. In talking to some network managers over the past few months, though, I’ve come to realize that this awareness might not be as widespread as I thought. Fortunately, I’ve found some tools that might help – and they’re provided by Microsoft.
The Microsoft Business Center has a number of options depending on the size of your organization and/or the industry it operates in. You’ll want to explore the whole site to find the best fit for you and your enterprise, but I’ll spotlight the “midsize business” area today to give you a taste for what to expect.
At first glance, articles such as “Talking CRM with your team: Questions a CEO should ask before buying” might seem to be aimed at someone other than the head of the IT or networking department. And, it’s true; it does address the CEO. But by knowing all about CRM, the applications that support it, the network services it needs and the data (which you might already have) that it consumes, you can be the right person at the right time and place to drive the selection and rollout of a new service. And it’s important to understand all the implications of any new service before rollout, else it might negatively impact the bottom line. One article on the Web site perfectly illustrates this:
“Alan Walker, vice president of financial services at Hitachi Consulting’s London office and a performance management expert, tells of a bank in the United Kingdom that bungled its [key performance] indicators. The bank sought to increase revenues with a new type of account. The bank’s top officers set goals for the number of new accounts each branch would be required to sell. The branch managers were told they would be evaluated on how well they met these sales targets.
“‘The managers went about signing up both old and new customers to these accounts with great gusto,’ Walker says. ‘It all seemed very sensible.’
“What was lost in the rush to sell these new accounts, however, was a key financial measure. The new accounts brought in less revenue to the bank than other established products. That important information was not communicated to the branch managers, who encouraged longtime customers to transfer from other (and, for the bank, more lucrative) accounts to the new, less profitable product.
“For a while the sales numbers looked terrific. There was only one problem. The bank was losing money as a result of the shift from the older accounts to the newer ones.”
Find the sections of the site that apply most directly to your business then make it a point to spend time reading all the pertinent articles. Not only could it help raise your profile within the organization, but do so in a way that let’s everyone know what a wonderful asset you are.
