Time to Get Rid of the IT Department? Not Exactly.

“IT departments are for a bygone era and are ill-suited to the demands of a digital-first world.”

Joe Peppard makes some compelling arguments in his article “It’s Time to Get Rid of the IT Department” in The Wall Street Journal. His primary suggestion throughout the piece is to decentralize IT and embed technology experts within business units because the traditional siloing of IT hinders its ability to add business value. But in the move to align with the new reality that “the business is the technology and the technology is the business”, companies still need centrally managed IT support to make sure their infrastructure is performing and secure.

Creating Common Threads
Although IT has in the past functioned on its own island of intelligence, this obsolete model no longer functions in today’s dynamic business environment.

Now, business problems more often than not require a technology-based solution. If a company’s brightest technologists are either siloed or too busy with mundane tasks like employee onboarding, password resets, or software patching, they’re not available to help where they are most needed. Having a common thread of technology expertise in every department to alleviate some of those tasks can power the elusive digital transformation many are striving for.

What Happens Without Centralized IT
Distributing an IT department to the four corners of the enterprise could leave a very big gap in service, which Peppard does acknowledge. There needs to be someone making the company-wide decisions and enforcing corporate policies, so there are not a dozen IT fiefdoms with their own management, support, and security challenges.

If one team manages tasks and tickets using Zendesk while another uses HubSpot or Excel, collaboration time and efficiency are lost by cross-referencing databases or trying to merge data. On top of functionality headaches, the organization is most likely paying for two different solutions for the same problem. Imagine differing security protocols across departments – you would not want one group implementing one vendor’s multi-factor authentication solution while the next group picks their favorite MFA provider. There needs to be someone taking a 10,000-foot view of the entire company’s IT and cyber security needs.

Filling the Void
The question becomes, how does an organization both place its technical know-how directly into business units and support a functional IT infrastructure when it is more than likely short-staffed and lacking critical skills?

The managed services approach enables companies to shift away from the traditional centralized IT organization that services the entire company. By going above and beyond what most internal IT teams can deliver in terms of 24/7/365 monitoring and support, multi-vendor expertise, and strategic thinking from virtual CIOs and CISOs, MSPs such as Thrive hold the key to a successful, secure digital transformation for organizations of all levels of technical ability.

Empowering IT to Drive Transformation
Today’s IT teams are not only reactive; they are critically proactive. They can bring some much-needed problem-solving muscle across the organization, but they just need to be unleashed from the monotony of routine IT tasks.

Not everyone has the capacity to dedicate heads in their organization to manage IT internally and drive digital transformation. Regardless of where your IT lives, they must exist to help move your organization forward. Whether your team needs a little extra support or you’d like to migrate those responsibilities fully remote, Thrive’s Managed IT Solutions or vCISO service are here to help you stay up-to-date and protected. All while you do what you do best – serve your customers.