The hen that laid an asteroid
Posted by Felix Enescu on January 23rd, 2007
…many vendors today say it is IT that makes the difference to enabling business innovation. Mark Twain’s response to such a claim would likely have been to repeat another of his famous remarks: “Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she has laid an asteroid.”
Dan McLean of Globe and Mail analyze in his recent article one of the usual claims made by IT vendors. Today: IT driven innovation.
In their pursuit of selling another bottle of “snake-oil” SAP turn around a survey of “Canada’s leading IT executives” to show the link between IT an innovation.
Dan digs a little in the survey read it correctly:
The telling point may be what respondents ranked as the top benefit of IT. Operational efficiency was voted No. 1 by 36 per cent and business productivity came out on top in the minds of 26 per cent.
By comparison, business innovation ranked No. 1 with only 6 per cent of respondents — behind the IT benefit of mobilizing work forces, which was cited by 8 per cent. And yet, SAP’s press release announced the survey results under the headline: “Canada’s Road to Business Growth and Innovation Runs Through the IT Department.”
IT can do a lot for any organization, but many times it collapses under the pressure created by vendor hype. If you read the marketing materials you’ll think that every vendor has laid out an asteroid. 
IT is a tool, a very powerful tool, a very smart tool, but only a tool. A tool cannot be smarter than the one using it.
Thanks Dan for the head up and people, go read the original article!
February 14th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
” If you read the marketing materials you’ll think that every vendor has laid out an asteroid.
”
I would say that every time a vendor enters your office you should expect such an attitude. Nevertheless, we should all agree on the fact that sometimes, the IT manager don’t go all the way in doing their due diligence and building a good solid RFP or, more important, an acquisition team, that would eventually help him see that the vendor entering his office is a mere chicken, not a hen.
Obviously, me, as a sales man, I did the same once, but I guess at this point we should all ask ourselves: “How prepared is an IT Manager to start a purchasing process”?
Are the IT managers 100% ready to delegate crucial parts of the purchasing process to the right persons (let’s say the negotiations to a qualified negotiator)?
February 19th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
How many good client teams have you seen? This is the sad reality. I only hope that people reading this will think about it next time they need to buy something.
February 20th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
It’s true! I haven’t seen too many in a long time now.
I got to the point where I am just wondering why do IT managers don’t have the courage to accept the fact that they DO NOT now everything and it’s no shame to ask somebody for help.
It is sad, because once a project fails because a bad organized client team, the company might suffer and get the most expensive or maybe the worst solution possible.
Sometimes this ends up in a new need to get a certain solution, but most of the times the upper management will never understand why the solution they just paid a lot of money 6 months ago needs replacement.
Moreover, I’ve see IT managers coming to interviews for new jobs being asked if they had any failure in their carrier. Most of them will say, they want to leave because the management won’t understand their projects.
It’s said mostly because they will never admit they were wrong. They should! We would all be happier
February 20th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
The life is not black and white. I saw from your LinkedIN profile that you only “sell” stuff.
I have experience on both sides. It really helps.
February 21st, 2007 at 12:53 pm
True!
I might be only selling “stuff” but this doesn’t stop of opening my eyes and draw a conclusion on what I’ve seen so far in my line of business.
Rest assured that what I write is what I know!
February 21st, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Nonetheless, I think I get your point!
I don’t know that much about how it is to be on the other side, but I truly hope that I will be able to make the cross sometime in the future and see how really feels to be in a buyer shoes…
Maybe, you can give me a hand by sharing some of your experience…It would be a pleasure for me to learn something from you!
If that’s possible, of course