Is IT complexity killing your business? Simplify IT

IS COMPLEXITY KILLING YOUR BUSINESS???

I read a great article the recently from Diann Daniel at CIO Magazine and the title kind of says it all:  “Complex IT Will Kill Your Business.”

In the article, she interviewed Rudy Puryear from Bain, who made the most simple, clear statement about IT that I have heard outside Dell.  He said. “It's hard to create a new business strategy and find new customers when complex IT blocks the way.”  He went on to say, “The problem is that a lot of organizations have built unnecessary complexity into their business, and this complexity is beginning to act like reinforced concrete. It's a barrier to change.”

So where do you find complexity in your IT infrastructure?  Let’s talk about it.  Here is what we hear from customers worldwide:  

• IT should not be as complex as it is, and vendors have a responsibility to do something about it.
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• IT people want to spend a lot less time on maintenance and a lot more on innovation (more interesting projects). They want to flip the old 70% maintenance / 30% innovation paradigm.
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• IT should not require an army of consultants.  Things should be a lot more standardized and intuitive, so that consultants are only needed for the big projects, not the day-to-day things.
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• IT can and should have a minimal environmental impact.  It should be possible to be more eco-friendly and still meet budget limits.
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• IT people should be able to drive their own agenda, not the agenda of some vendor that wants to lock them into proprietary technology.
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We’ve gone on record as saying we’re doing our part, but things won’t change without involvement from you.  So my question is this:  Where are you finding complexity in your IT?  Is it with servers, systems management, deployment, maintenance, storage, talent, or something else?  Let us hear your ideas.