

IT Chargeback/Trackback: Yes, You Need It - CowboyRobot
http://www.networkcomputing.com/private-cloud/240003313

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Zenst
The only real way to get a true picture of IT costs is to pull the plug and
see how much gets done without IT.

Sadly this only happens during outages or you have some muppet mess up a
upgrade or the like. You then get to see the true costs of IT. Sadly
accountants don't like IT, so they get boxed in with reduced budgets and
outsourcing etc as the accountant can get his bonus saying he helped save
money for the company. This is hostorical as accountants use dto have vast
pools of people playing with calculators - they got replaced by computers and
the accountant suddely had his empire reduced to nothing. this is historicaly
why accountants hate IT and also in many ways why IT does itself no favours in
company culture by highlighting what value they actualy do bring to the table.

It is easy to make up some value and cross-charge and then the head of the
department your cross charging goes and says I can employee a pimple head for
half that price for twice the hours and get that done - ignoreing that the
cost actualy involves being at hand 27/7 of there working day and unseen work.
So a good IT department is one you never have any dealing with as they fix the
problems before they happen. This goes on for a while and it is so easy for
other department heads to claim they don't need internal IT and outsource it,
either officialy or by subcontracting to there mates etc behind IT's back.
This sadly happens way to often. Good IT people are good at IT and not good at
explaining why there good and what value they bring. It is only when IT goes
wrong that it is costable and then IT gets the blame. Basicly IT is dammed if
it does work and dammed if it don't work. This is why IT in so many companies
are treated like shite and the days of fair pay for the skills involved
compared to somebody who works in say HR who to gain that skillset requires
less intellegence has gone adrift. People have a PC mentality and as such pay
Penut Compensation leading to lots of IT people who realy should not even be
trusted with anything electrical, let alone rolling out production patch's or
the like.

How do you cost yoru IT worth to another department. Ask the department how
long it will take to do without a computer of any form and thats your answear.
Any other approach is a false economy based upon delusional managment
abstracted from reality.

