How IT Leaders and Vendors Must Change Now

[MichaelDortch]

"Everything changes and nothing stands still." — Heraclitus of Ephesus (535 BC — 475 BC), as quoted by Plato

Enterprise service management and IT are basically poster children for the constancy of change. But not all change is progress or improvement over the status quo. And what differentiates random change from change that induces progress or improvement?

How about one or more specific goals, and maybe plans intended to reach them?

The great thing about the need for goal-oriented change is that it is just as urgent for those who lead IT and service management initiatives and those who sell solutions to those users. Herewith, evidence of this shared urgency, and some advice for responding to it, from sources I and many members of both constituencies tend to respect and take seriously.

Hank Barnes of Gartner recently published another great post, entitled "The Future of IT Sales Is Now." Hank argues persuasively that IT buyers are surrounded by a surfeit of information, and want and need credible guides to help them to navigate the morass. "Do that, and you will be a highly valued asset. Buyers do want to interact directly with you — but only if you deliver added value.

"How do you do this? It is not that hard.   And, it is not that different from how great sales reps behaved in the past," Hank asserts. He then offers these specific suggestions.

• "Suggest a need/opportunity that the customer may not know they have.
• "Present compelling evidence from a variety of sources , not just your company, about key issues and the potential value of addressing it.
• "Guide the customer through their buying journey, helping them find and assemble the right type of information to get buy-in, refute objections, and make progress.
• "Link the need to your company's solutions to provide a compelling reason to buy from you (versus others)
• "Provide access to key technical and industry resources in your organization to build trust beyond your products."

"For some, this may be business as usual. But for many, it requires a different way of thinking — one that is more customer-centric than product-centric." If you sell IT solutions and neither read nor remember anything else here, please remember the immediately preceding sentence. It will directly determine how successful you are in getting on the short lists of they buyers you approach.

And if you are one of those buyers, there's some equally great (and potentially disruptive) advice for you, too. It comes by way of an Information Week slideshow entitled "New IT Skills: Why Communication, Accountability, Initiative Are Hot Now." The piece is based on "Bureau of Labor Statistics data and information supplied by CompTIA, "the IT industry trade association," and Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights, trackers and analysts of job postings and related data. In it, Information Week identifies   eight so-called "soft skills" IT people need to succeed. Here's the list.

• Communication and Coordination
• Problem Solving
• Project and Process Flow
• "Business Environment Skills" (understanding how "technologies can create opportunities and address business challenges or requirements in specific industries or sectors")
• Teamwork
• Work Ethic, Motivation, and Initiative
• Customer Service
• Flexibility and Adaptability

That last item brings us back around to the need to manage and focus change. For some IT leaders, the most flexibility and adaptability they need to demonstrate soonest is that required to address the rest of this list of skills.

And if you're not convinced that these skills are at least as important as any particular technical proficiency, consider this. In this same piece, Information Week reports that CompTIA surveyed some 400 human resources professionals for its "HR Perceptions of IT Training & Certification Study" (registration required). Soft skills such as those listed here were ranked by survey respondents as their fifth-largest hiring, challenge, "beating out issues such as salary alignment and competition from larger companies. For comparison, hard skills ranked second, with appropriate work experience [cited] as the top headache when recruiting and hiring IT pros."

Whether you're a buyer, user, or vendor of IT solutions, change is already your constant companion. Fortunately, whatever your role, there is a relatively straightforward, integrated way to cope with and focus that change in ways that help you to be successful. Think first about those being served and what they and their colleagues care about accomplishing most. Use that to guide and prioritize decisions about the process and technology choices needed to achieve those goals.

In other words, remember that in IT, "information" comes before "technology." And in service management, "service" comes first.