Which of us have actually written a line of code in any language? Perl?, PHP?, Javascript?, C, ummm, Fortran? Has anyone wrestled with Linux or Unix? What about an SQL conforming database – Oracle, or Sybase – even MS Access? Who here has ever entered a command at a shell prompt? Dos “dir”, or Unix “ls”, or anything of that kind?
I assume that we are NOT all gurus, here… If you are, you can skip this note. Otherwise, face it – you are dependent on someone’s skill. This can take two forms, sometimes at the same time.
Dependency Form 1
The simple one is that you contract your guru skills. You have located someone who can monitor your implementation, keep abreast of all of the changes, and recommend changes to your systems. That’s a good approach – you have outsourced your problem. All you have to do now is to make sure that your contractor knows their stuff, that you can count on their servicing your needs, and that they are themselves good at this process. One of these days we will talk about qualifying such vendors, but that is a very long discussion.
Dependency Form 2
The second form is insourcing your skills needs. You have hired someone to deal with these issues. Fine – what if they leave? How do you set performance expectations for a role that you do not understand? What provisions have you made to ensure that they are able to stay up-to-date on developments in the IT world? Well, there is an obvious answer here – outsource that! Contract with some vendor to provide the skills maintenance, performance evaluation, and audit your operation’s technology capability.
It is one thing if your IT involvement is purely on the staff side – accounting software perhaps, or a purchasing and inventory system, or possibly e-mail for communications support. If you have opted for using IT assets that are line-of-business, or are interwoven with operational execution, it is a completely different matter. Perhaps you use Autocad as a tooling design platform for your shop. You may be using preventative maintenance software to support your fleet maintenance sales to a car leasing company. If your sales are directly dependent on some form of IT, then your skills dependency is immediate, and a significant source of business risk.
One thing you can be sure of – skills redundancy and risk reduction will cost you money… which is fine, have you evaluated the payback from this IT investment? When you evaluate an investment in IT, remember that you need to keep the payback window much shorter than you would an investment in other assets – on the order of two years. Also make sure that you over-estimate the costs of both implementation, and the provision of some skills redundancy.
Bear in Mind
IT can have enormous productivity benefits to independent businesses. If you opt for this approach to a competitive edge, better check your hole cards.
Question for You
Do you rely on someone for IT skills? If so, what happens if they get sick?
2 Comments
I completely concur with this post. My generation of accountants is almost completely computer illiterate. So as a result my practice is almost entirely dependent upon the younger blood to bail us old hands out of computer problems. Its become so important that we altered our hiring criteria to reflect the need for IT skills!
I’ve wrestled with this problem too. Using a spreadsheet program is about all I can do. But isn’t dealing with computers what children are for?
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