Читать книгу AI-Enabled Analytics for Business - Lawrence S. Maisel - Страница 29

It is natural to think that anything with computers is the domain of IT. True, but only to a point. Think of IT as the Department of Transportation that makes the rules of the road, like weight and height limits of vehicles. The DOT does not, say, tell a trucking company what trucks it can or cannot buy. Similarly, IT should set policies for data security and software support but not decide what software a user can use.

IT should provide computing infrastructure and security for the data, but the choice of the software must be up to the user, as long as the software complies with the policies. However, IT usually becomes a roadblock by interjecting itself in the decision process. How many times have users found software that meets their needs wonderfully, only to be told by IT that they cannot have it because IT does not want to support it, or they must accept software already in-house, or they must use other software chosen by IT, or IT will build the software?

IT's job is to support the user who knows best what software will meet the business's needs. For example, a division of a Fortune 500 consumer package goods (CPG) company's demand planning group invited four software vendors to bid to provide demand forecasting. After proof-of-concept tests and bids from the vendors, the user group rejected one vendor and rated the other three for the gold, silver, and bronze medals. However, the vendor that won was selected by IT and was the vendor that was rejected by the users—twice!

The consequence of IT dominance in software selection is typically software that, in the best case, underperforms because it does not fully meet the business needs, and in the worst case is modestly used or goes unused. As such, when selecting analytics tools, be sure the choice is that of the users, not IT, or the value obtained will be marginal.