IT in the board room? What!?

<To the tune of the Burt Bacharach/Austin Powers song>

What the world needs now, is IT people who understand business

</Bad attempt at a song parody>

So maybe the song doesn't fit the tune, but
I think the message is right on. We need more IT people who understand business. Why? I'm glad you asked.

#1. Make better recommendations

Sure, you need to replace that ancient firewall with something way more advanced with higher capacity and fewer limitations. In fact, the replacement isn't that expensive. And since you're so good at your job, you've even worked out the least expensive way for your company to obtain this shiny new technology - because you're that good. You also know (somewhere deep inside) that this will protect this company better while increasing productivity. Right? 

But how? How much will it increase productivity and how important is that? How will it protect the company, and from what? Furthermore, is it the right amount of protection? Is it worth stepping up to the next level of technology, or conversely, are you overspending on something unnecessary? If all you know is that the box needs replacing and that spending the cash will have some vague positive impact - then you need to understand the business better. 

#2. Have meaningful communications

Let's building on our last example. You picked out the firewall that you think is the right choice. Now you have to get that suit-wearing dude to be willing to write the check. This is your chance to show him how well you researched it, how smart you are, and how amazing of a contributor you are for being so amazingly proactive. You are all prepared to talk about the capacity, filtering technology, survivability, scalability, and overall wonderfull-ness of this technology. You dazzle with technical descriptions, charts and graphs, and whitepapers. 

This is what the "suit dude" hears: "Spend x dollars on this whoosie-what's-it-majiggy-thing that's shiny". He asks, "why do we need it?". You respond, "because the whamalama-whopsibob could have a churgle-fargle - and you DON'T want that". So, he reluctantly authorizes the purchase order for yet another necessary-but-I-don't-really-know-or-care-why expenditure. But where's the business strategy?

#3. (And most importantly) Earn IT a seat at the strategy table

Your marketing manager understands how what he does affects the business. So does your sales manager. And your production manager. Somehow IT has ended up in the role of serving those other departments to make sure their mission-critical pieces and parts don't fail.

What's wrong with that? IT is uniquely poised to discover problems with the business, and bring solutions. IT can and should be part of the company's overall strategy. 

If you pull it off, you move from "buy us this whoosie-whatsie, pretty please" to "implementing a new information security system will help mitigate some of the risks associated with data loss and data exposure, however, we should talk about ways to quantify and then accept or transfer the remaining risk". 

Now you're using technology to solve business problems - and isn't that what we're here for?