Move Over Techies

All of us once sat through an award winning Hindi movie. As we emerged from that infliction of meaningless song and dance sans storyline, the most restless amongst us blurted, “An award for this? Why?” The film had won an award for technical brilliance. Come to think of it, the technology used was superior, but it never came across as the end result was so disastrous.

It is the same with using technology in conducting business. Sophisticated technology will get you nowhere if the resultant application does not run smoothly. Traditional businesses have already experienced the pangs of transforming to a digitalized set up. Corporates across industries have laudable e-business initiatives. The mood however, is far from upbeat. Traditional companies, including market leaders, are home to a large pool of dissatisfied IT users. There are horror stories involving database management systems (DBMS) which are difficult to maintain and huge-sized websites that take ages to download. The problem here is, decision-makers are unable to convey what they need and IT professionals provide what is technologically superior with scant regard for functionality of the product.

Going back to the origin of the ‘technical’ and ‘functional’ titles accorded to professionals…The dictionary defines technical as something that is pertaining to a system of knowledge, while functional is that which is utilitarian and which performs a function. But in the IT industry, especially in HR and recruitment circles, ‘technical’ refers to an IT professional whose expertise lies strictly in areas like software development, networking, hardware support and the like. Functional refers to a professional who uses technology to make the best use of his domain knowledge. Experts in areas like application software, finance, procurement and marketing, in fact any field involving IT, can be classified as functional. Enterprises usually have a mix of both on board. The effort now, is to create the techno-functional class of professionals who understands both technology and business.

In most cases, IT professionals are weak on the functional aspect of the requirement. They are naturally more concerned about which software should be used, which language the code should be written in and other such technical issues. Similarly, managers are unaware of the implications of each of these decisions. Simply said, they are intimidated by the jargon and are afraid of asking questions.

Where companies rope in IT experts to digitize their businesses, they need to build an in-house team of techno-functional experts that speak this language. Key decision makers and business drivers need to latch on to the IT jargon, not start coding — but direct the coders in what they want out of the new system. To begin with, they should be able to assess the e-business readiness of each aspect of the business, prioritize and initiate the process of transformation accordingly. They should be equipped to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of existing software in the market and make informed choices.

Where IT professionals need to head is toward achieving functional insight, understanding of business processes and ensuring that IT actually facilitates existing business.

One way to ensure that professionals meet the dual criteria of domain knowledge and technology is to have a system in which employees from the functional side do a stint in the IT department and vice versa. Another way may be to identify functional professionals with an aptitude for technology and put them through an exhaustive technical training course. Professionals who have undergone such training can then be asked to head e-biz implementation teams. When this happens, finally, technology will talk business.

Manjiri Kalghatgi in New Delhi