Is Information Technology Making Bottom Line Decisions for You?

Dear Mr. or Ms. CEO; I've been meaning to ask you about your parking lot. I noticed it only allows access to late model cars. Does this mean you don't want to do business with the millions of people driving anything but? No, of course not. That would be a bad marketing decision; limiting your customer base to strictly the top 10%. But in reality, your tech team may just be making this decision for you. Technology teams frequently have an apex mindset. They shoot for the top in everything they do. Usually, keeping up with things in a rapidly changing world is a good thing-unless by doing so, they leave the rest of the world behind and beyond reach.

Keeping Things in Perspective

The latest release and the newest version is not only important for IT status, it echoes the support of senior management. it is like having the newest Nike® trainers in high school; from a teenager's point of view, it is a matter of life or death, but Dad knows better. When programmers start writing code beyond customer accessibility, company margins may suffer the consequences by narrowing. Technology changes so fast, it is hard for senior management to keep up; in fact, if they are busy running the company and trust their IT teams, they pretty much ignore all the coddled code complexity and concentrate on the big picture. But minding your own business when it comes to programming a website isn't minding your business at all.