The Trade Lifecycle: Behind the Scenes of the Trading Process, 2nd Edition

Chapter 19 The IT Divide

In this chapter we will explore a phenomenon that is common in many investment banks, but in our experience is seldom recognised or discussed. We will refer to it as the ‘IT divide’ and it manifests itself as a cultural, business and communication gap between the people working in information technology and all the other departments within the bank. We will use the term ‘business’ to donate the non-IT community.

We will give examples of good and bad projects and attempt to answer the following questions:

• What is the IT divide?
• What problems does it cause?
• How can it be bridged?

19.1 What is the IT divide?

The first factor to consider is a lack of understanding of IT by the business. Most business managers are aware that they spend a lot of money on IT, but have no clear knowledge of where the money is going or why it costs so much. An analogy might be to having builders in your home. They might be necessary but they cost money and you are never exactly sure what they are doing.

In addition, people in other business functions regard IT professionals as a different species. IT uses a strange language full of technical terms and three letter acronyms. They dress differently, spend their spare time in unusual ways (taking apart computers, attending folk music festivals, addicted to Star Trek etc.) and find it hard to talk to ‘normal’ people.

Due to these and other issues, the business fails to engage in sufficient detail with IT. The business head might ...