There is a bit of a clash (as has usually been the case) between business managers and IT professionals, especially when it comes to implementing collaboration solutions within the enterprise. Business managers see a unique opportunity to implement their own cloud solutions for their teams without waiting around for IT to do it for them. IT on the other hand is under an increasing amount of pressure to focus on deploying solutions which meet the standards for their company around security, integration, their technical roadmap, and a host of other things. When it comes to collaboration though there is a lot of education which both business managers and IT professionals could benefit from. The only difference is that business managers can deploy anything they want at anytime just to see how they like it. If they see a collaboration platform they like they can be up and running with a full deployment within a few hours. IT doesn’t have this luxury.
IT professionals have a unique opportunity to step up to become the collaboration experts. This means understanding the technology solutions which exist and how they can impact their organizations. Oftentimes IT professionals are seen as roadblocks but the reality is that IT professionals can be seen as change agents within the enterprise. New technologies usually needed to be approved by IT but now that dynamic has changed and business managers are going rogue (so to speak).
Usually what IT says, goes, even senior level executives go with what IT professionals approve and implement, oftentimes with no questions asked. Basically what I’m getting to is that if IT approves collaboration technologies for the enterprise then they will get implemented, in fact IT can help lead this change. However, this can only happen if IT professionals have the knowledge to make these decisions (and quickly).
I’m not saying that IT needs to be solely responsible for collaboration initiatives but that business managers can see IT as a way to help make this change instead of seeing them as a roadblock in the way of this change. Business managers have the necessary knowledge around business value and uses cases but IT has the power to really make the deployment a reality across the enterprise with their approval.
IT has a lot of potential and a strong opportunity to make collaboration happen, but will it?
