Expending the Role of the Solution Provider and Making IT Matter Again

Nicholas Carr’s controversial 2003 Harvard Business Review article titled "IT Doesn’t Matter" and his 2004 book "Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage" put a damper on the importance of IT in today’s corporations. Whether true or not, some perceptions were changed and IT departments have felt the repercussions.

Regardless of Carr’s observations, there is still a way to increase the importance of IT in today’s corporations and it is all in the hands of the channel.

First, let’s set the table with some factoids:

According to IBM estimates, as much as 40 percent of an office’s entire electricity use is for IT equipment.

IDC research shows that every dollar spent on IT hardware, results in 50 cents being spent on power, growing to 75 cents in three years.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. servers and data centers have doubled their electricity usage in five years, gobbling up $4.5 billion of power last year.

OK, you are probably assuming I’ll be talking about the greening of technology and how it can impact a business, but before you abandon my little commentary here, please read on a little more.

Yes, green technology saves money and yes companies are already greening their data centers, but power savings shouldn’t end with the data center. IT departments now have an opportunity to expand their roles and push green ideology out beyond the data center.

Simply put, green is all about technology and no corporate department is better equipped than IT to deal with technology. What’s more, green technology needs monitoring and management to realize any true savings, again IT’s primary strengths. What’s more, green goes well beyond those "electricity" based products. Vendors are developing supplies that are "more green", such as printer toner or paper – Additional areas where IT can impact "how green" a business is.

To read more about why it’s getting easier to be green, click here.

Let’s think about some minor changes in the business environment that can save energy and costs; How about automatic thermostats to reduce heat and cooling needs during off hours? What about automated lighting, to shut off unused lights? And let’s not forget the modern PCs ability to hibernate or sleep when not used. All of those elements can add up to savings, with very little effort.

But, much of those technologies have been left to the control of facilities departments and not IT departments. That creates a significant problem when it comes to determining real savings. Most facilities departments install green technology because of corporate mandates and savings are calculated based upon faith; faith that the product will work correctly, faith that the power savings schedules are correct, faith that the products actually do offer the claimed savings.

Here is where IT can step in and quantify that faith—modern green technology should be integrated and monitored, and managed—something that is very possible with the automation technologies available today.

For the channel, equipping IT departments with this knowledge will lead to sales and services, and when it comes to selling and supporting green technology, no one is better equipped than the channel. The figures from IBM and IDC mentioned above show there is already a need and most green initiatives today will start with the data center.

Now is the time to leverage that "green" influence and expand green technology from the data center to the general corporate environment.