Short-termism causes Long-term costs which are then addressed with another wave of short-termism which causes ...

The Importance of the IT Infrastructure

The importance of the IT infrastructure is often overridden by perceived importance of the applications

The truth is that unless the IT infrastructure has been built properly the applications will not run. It should be noted that the servers, networks and operating system will normally last much longer than the version of the "mission-critical" application.

For the business to run, the IT platform must be reliable, flexible, consistent and future-proofed. The IT choices cannot be dictated by short-term pressures for a quick, cheap and cheerful solution. For infrastructure decisions a long-term view must always be taken.

How can this be done?

You need a business strategy and a linked IS/IT strategy. From this you can create an integrated roadmap that defines the short & long-term requirements. Once this is known it is possible to make the correct infrastructure decisions - the required capability with the required capacity at the right time and place within the agreed budget.

This all sounds so obvious that it is strange that this is not being done.

Why does it fail?

It fails because the business creates the budgets first and then decides what can be done for the money. They let the projects dictate what is done, when it is done and how it is done. We have now moved from a long-term view of the infrastructure to a short-term view of the project.

Successful businesses are those that can balance these different pressures so that their infrastructure can organically adapt to the business needs.