EDITOR’S COMMENT
What technology does
the employee want?
By understanding employees better, IT departments
may be able to bring in the right technologies says
Ahmed Auda at VMware.
E
veryone hates filling in expense
forms. But for years, businesses
have been fooled into thinking that
this system is making life easy for everyone.
It is not, it is only making it easier for those
who deal with the expenses.
This is a prime example of what is wrong
with the way IT enables business processes
in many organisations. IT has traditionally
asked the accounts team what they need, or
questioned the leadership team about the
best system to procure. Yet in doing this,
they are focusing on the wrong customer,
they should not only be looking at it from
a departmental perspective, they should
focus on the people who will actually
interact with the solution.
After all, if the end user is not excited
about the technology or application, and
they do not find it intuitive, they will
not willingly integrate it into their busy
working lives.
Alongside this, IT’s task has been
made much harder with new technologies
becoming mainstream and more
technologies entering the business. A
recent study of ours found that two thirds
of business and IT leaders in EMEA
believe that cloud computing has made
it easier for lines of business to purchase
their own IT, with almost half stating that
non-IT functions were authorising their
own tablets, smartphones and laptops.
Departments are clearly taking control
over their own IT needs, and this means
the IT department is relinquishing control.
In fact, 42% of business and IT leaders
agree that the IT department has had
no control over this decentralising of IT.
While many leaders understand that there
Ahmed Auda is Managing Director, Middle
East and North Africa at VMware.
are benefits to be realised from this trend,
more than half say it is currently making
IT’s job more challenging, with key issues
including the duplication of IT spend,
a lack of clear ownership for IT and the
purchasing of non-secure solutions.
So how do we tackle this?
A change in approach and mindset is
needed. I was recently asked for career
advice for a friend’s 16-year-old son who had
an interest in computers and technology.
He was thinking of taking A Levels in
maths, physics and computer science, but
I recommended he drop computer science
and take psychology instead.
Why? Because, while maths and physics
are fundamental to technology, apart from
the basics what you will learn in computer
science will be out of date in five years’
time. What is more useful is understanding
empathy, emotion and motivation; the
softer skills of human interaction.
Then, when it comes to selecting and
implementing technology solutions,
you can understand what the user really
wants and how they will use it, as well as
how it should be sold to the workforce;
so employees do get excited about it and
appreciate the various ways it can impact
the business.
IT teams are at the coalface of the
issue but this people-centric approach is
something the entire business must grapple
with. These new technologies are a reality
because of business-wide transformations
to become more digital, where cloud
computing has made these applications and
services available and the consumerisation
of IT has set the benchmark in how
intuitive they should be.
This new environment necessitates an
IT team equipped with the right technical
and soft skills, but also employees with
the desire, understanding and capability
to fully exploit the technology now at
their fingertips. Working to understand
the emotive drivers across the entire
workforce will be crucial to this. It will
better wed technology to individuals
and refine IT’s potential impact on the
business as a result.
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