IT Investment Apathy

I have found myself in a number of discussions over the last few days when people have expressed significant apathy about the value of IT investments. The apathy normally centres around the potential business benefits of making the investment. In clear terms people are saying that they are very skeptical about any claims of benefits from any IT investment.

This isn’t a new thing – we seem to have had nearly 5 years now when people’s focus has primarily been on cost reduction. But I had thought a few months ago that we were starting to see the glimmers of a change, a change towards focussing on value and innovation.

Is it just the people I am speaking to who are having the problem seeing the value or is this something that we are all facing?

Even when there is very clear benefit and lots of research, people just don’t believe it. My current example of this is the use of multiple monitors. There is loads of research which says that people gain significant productivity benefits by having more than one monitor. If I was specifying hardware I would insist on all desktop devices having two video outputs and purchase an extra monitor for every refreshed device. Unfortunately everyone I speak to is focussed on providing the cheapest standard desktop that they can. The problem is that this focus on cost closes the gate on the productivity gains from having multiple monitors.

If IT has become seen as a cost rather than a value then we have to do something to change it?

Am I just talking to the wrong people?