What Does Your Brother-in-Law Do?

Would you be comfortable with your accountant giving you acupuncture?

Would you give your brother-in-law responsibility for your most valuable business growth tool - in his spare time?

Or maybe it's the CEO or the marketing manager who has become your de facto IT Manager.

Just as we wouldn't expect the dentist to do an accounting job, or the accountant to do a healthcare job, we can no longer afford to consult the CEO, marketing manager or a computer hobbyist when the computer is running slow or your network has stopped working.

And today, more and more businesses are waking up to the fact that good technology is a vital key to business success - so much so, that Information Technology (IT) is now the fastest growing industry on the planet. And the businesses that are using technology efficiently are also the businesses that are successful and growing.

This discovery was made by Professor Marco Iansiti, director of research at Harvard Business School. He read an article in the Harvard Business Review in 2003 entitled "IT Doesn't Matter". The article asserted that IT had become a commodity like electricity, and that it no longer gave strategic advantage to the organisations that employ it. Although a lot of people disagreed with his ideas, there was no actual research to prove otherwise and so Professor Marco Iansiti decided to do two studies.

The results of his broad studies showed consistent results across different nations: the companies that do take investment in IT seriously across the board, from infrastructure to tools for developers and end-users and companies, have higher performance than those that don't view IT strategically.

The research is based on the proposition that IT effectiveness depends not on how much a company invests but how effectively managers make use of their IT dollars.

Choosing a good IT company is integral to success. No longer can you afford to rely on the part time friend or relative, who got you off to a cracking start in the beginning. What is needed to keep up with your competitors is a focused strategy, guided by an expert in his field, who can guide you to increased business success in the most economical way possible.

You can read more about this research at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/jun06/06-11Keystone.mspx

Meanwhile, who is it who is looking after your IT needs? You can't afford not to have a dedicated IT professional keeping your business up to date and working well with technology so that you can work on doing what you do best - growing your business. Contact Softpro today.

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