11 March 2009 | A comment by CTO Karsten Fogh Ho-Lanng
Use IT to bring you successfully through a crisis
The current economic crisis will have significant repercussions on the way we run our businesses. We can choose to hide from the storm, dig out the emergency rations and cut deep into budgets and resources. Or we can choose to focus on how we would like our businesses to be on the other side of the crisis. There’s always a recovery after a recession.
Unlike the last economic crisis, this time the IT industry isn't to blame. Today, IT is a fully-integrated part of business processes and it is impossible to talk about isolated cuts in IT. When we cut the IT budget, we cut the possibilities for business development. Sometimes it makes sense to wait with an investment in IT until we know how the business looks. But very often, IT is the lever that can lift the company, getting it ready for growth after the recession is over.
The smartest investments have a positive effect in the current squeeze and prepare us for the coming recovery. This applies to outsourcing IT and business processes that – when they are properly implemented – are cost-effective, add resources and co-operation while contributing to a maturing of your company’s business processes. Another example is server consolidation and virtualization of servers and desktops that have already had an effect on hardware needs, electricity consumption and IT safety for desktops. Or Business Intelligence solutions that can improve decision-making in the business.
Finally, IT can and should also play a role in innovation for companies. Naturally, as a tool for controlling and improving the efficiency of development processes, but increasingly also as part of new digital products - such as online functions related to physical products. Not only is it forward-looking and cost-effective, digital services also have the advantage that, unlike new product lines, they don't need to be built in a factory.
The use of IT will have a decisive influence on how we manage the crisis. We need to carefully consider the options and NNIT would like to help. That’s why throughout 2009 we’ll be focusing on some of the challenges that Danish and foreign companies will be facing – and coming with critical input to how the crisis can be used constructively to maintain and create tomorrow's winning companies.