Many business leaders today are savvier about technology than they were in the past, and this can be a double-edged sword for IT leaders.  A little knowledge about IT can make business leaders harder to satisfy, and it can also make outsourced solutions look dangerously more attractive to them, writes Jonathan Feldman, IT services director for a city in North Carolina. The way to combat this problem is by becoming more transparent about IT's costs.

"In a reversal of the past, the recent spate of easy-to-use consumer technologies has lured everyone into thinking that there's an IT 'easy button,'" Feldman writes in a post at InformationWeek. "Indeed, some of these consumer-tech-savvy business leaders may be thinking, 'What do you IT people do all day?'"

To convey the value of in-house IT, IT leaders need to be more clear about what they do all day, Feldman advises. Business leaders need to understand the costs of enterprise IT per transaction and how those costs compare with external providers' offerings. Otherwise, they will be inclined "to do a side-by-side comparison of the Geek Squad's hourly rates with your multimillion-dollar personnel budget," he warns.

The ability to provide a detailed comparison of internal services and external services goes a long way in establishing the IT department's credibility. The comparison has to include costs per user, including capital costs, licenses and support from staff. The information can boost more than IT's credibility. It can also help the department save money and become more efficient.

For more:
- see Jonathan Feldman's post at InformationWeek

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