After 5 years working in a legal Firm, I recently joined a new company.... a really really new company. It is a newly setup company owned by the Government under the Ministry of Youth and Sports. New company.... new people... new environment and.... new boss....
As one of the pioneer staff in the company, I am solely responsible on the IT of the company. Means... everything needs to be done... starting from scratch... planning... what, how, why, who.. Procurement... What, what, what.... and finally implementation... how... how... I thought it would be really interesting and challenging... until... the dealing with people part came into picture.
Being put in-charged to establish all IT infrastructures in the company, there are lots of things that needed consideration.... And one of it that always interests me is WHAT WE NEED vs KEEPING TO THE TECHNOLOGY TREND.
It was quite difficult for me... because I am not the final decision maker. I am reporting to the CEO... Who definitely has a different idea on almost everything from what I have in my mind. He thinks that whatever we do must follow the trend... Buy the most powerful server, and use the latest software version. Buy the most popular software from the giant company even though it would cost you a boom. For him they are more reliable and since the company is an established company, they could provide you with better support.
I am not against technology trend, or the giant company... For me having the most updated software and hardware would always be good BUT I still think it has to be balanced with what we actually need to use. Good things always mean good money... But why waste the good money to buy good things if at the end of the day the good things are left behind collecting dust at the corner of the room. When we buy things, money is always the constraint. But even in a situation where it is not, I sincerely think that it should be use wisely... and furthermore it is not our own money... its the people's money that we are spending... Remember?!
So... what do you think? What is more important to consider? The need or the trend? Must we keep to the technology trend even though we do not really need it... or would never use it? Or do not even know how to use it? :-)
Or must we follow the trend in order to move forward.....
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7 comments:
To buy or not to buy...
To implement or not...
IT people will always try to aim the best of specification of everything...but do we really need it?
Make your planning to cater 5 or 10 years in the future. Good money cannot be approved by the authorities without a good project. While have the chance, use it extremely wise. If it is still not needed now, is it means that it won't be needed for 10 years from now? No point keep buying and buying at the time you think that you need it, but try to plan it smartly beforehand, buy it once, and use it for everything you might have to deal with in your plan.
yeah, i agree with your point that seems to be against technology trend. For me its like "ukur baju di badan sendiri" ..
Nowadays, technology moving so fast. If didn't follow we will far behind and when tried to follow sometime we couldn't afford it. So think smart when we want to really follow the technology whether it is necessary to our organization or not. In other words, "Fikir dulu sebelum membeli".
for me it's not about to follow the latest technology trend. but it's about whether we need it or not. we don't have to be the leader nor 'hero' in technology.
Buy, implement, use it if you really, really need it.Whenever you plan to buy new s/w or h/w, make sure you plan the deployment methodology also.
BUT if the market insist you to do so,(remember those Porter's 5 forces model?) you need to do it.
but plz do not deploy the minimum requirements - this is the reason why we keep on buying and buying.
Better to 'up lil bit' bcoz if at the same time the techno change, you can still manage to 'join the convoy'.
"...I will follow you... Follow you wherever you may go..." :)
The best to deal with the management is by using fact and figure. We need to do analyse on risk and tabulate the analyse to the management. Use the SISP methodology as suggested by Khairul. To analyse the readiness of IS system in your organisation you can refer to Robert S. Kaplan & N. David paper "Measuring Intangible Asset By Using Balanced Score Card" - HBR. This approach can clearly visualise the readiness of IS system in our organisation. "Trend is not important but strategic strategy is vital"
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