IT Success!: Towards a New Model for Information Technology

1.6. Houses of ill repute

At this stage let us introduce the notion of a business model, which at its simplest describes how a company builds and sells its products, at what costs and margins, and how it interacts with its customers. The construction industry trap and the free lunch trap above had far-reaching consequences on the IT business model. The first one ensured that IT would rarely be able to deliver systems that really met business requirements, thereby setting itself up for one or more cycles of 'corrective maintenance' (an oxymoron really). The second one ensured that users would always be fundamentally dissatisfied with IT, because if something desirable is essentially free, then by definition they will end up asking for more than what can be physically and economically delivered.

Any one of these two factors by itself was a big enough challenge. But the two combined was to prove extremely damaging over time, and gave rise to a number of other ills which, though at first sight seem unrelated, can ultimately all be traced back to one or both of these factors.

One of the most visible results was an adversarial relationship between IT and the rest of the business (Users – 'not only was it delivered late, it's not really what we asked for!'. IT – 'we delivered to spec – they don't know what they want!'). Needless to say, this provided a fertile ground for vendors and consultants to hype new concepts and technologies, with the implicit message that they could probably ...