All I want for Christmas is…

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Half the country might be on holiday already, or claiming the snow makes it impossible to come in to work. But for those of us who are in the office, now is as good a time as any to pen a letter, or send a Tweet, to Father Christmas. If he can fit down the data centre chimney, here are a few things IT managers might hope he can bring.

Better IT management tools and standards

The cost of day-to-day operations continues to swallow up between 70 and 80 per cent of IT budgets. Analysts have long argued businesses need to shift that ratio to 50 per cent or less, in order to free up money for developing new applications. Unfortunately, the ratio remains stubbornly weighted towards keeping the lights on.

Better tools for managing applications and hardware should be part of the answer. By better, this really means cheaper and easier to use, rather than more comprehensive. IT directors want their staff to be able to manage operations from a "single pane of glass," regardless of the vendors a business buys from.

By the same token, better and more standardised connections between applications would help too, and would be especially important for businesses moving to the cloud. Too often, standardisation translates into "buy everything from us, and you'll be fine." What CIOs really want is interoperability.

Better understanding of security by the business

Most data and security breaches are not caused by IT, but all too often IT takes the blame.

Two changes could improve data security: a greater appreciation of the risks by senior management (quite possibly including more funds for security and data protection projects) and a better understanding among staff that security is only as good as the weakest link.

CIOs, and chief information security officers, would find their task a lot easier if employees at all levels treat personal data at least as carefully as they would their own cash.

Better budgets

Above all, IT departments need to see the financial constraints eased. The last few years have seen IT spending under constant pressure. Although there is some merit to the argument that IT should be able to do more for less, this underplays the role IT should have across the business.

Raising IT spending, if done with care, should raise overall business productivity or help the organisation as a whole to reduce costs. Innovations such as flexible working, video conferencing, improved collaboration tools and better, easier to use enterprise applications should more than pay for themselves.

But it is not possible to demand that IT does more to help the business, unless IT itself has the resources to innovate. Boards need to see IT as an investment case, not a cost.

Hopefully, some or all of these wishes will come true. In the meantime, have a great holiday season.

Stephen Pritchard is a contributing editor at IT PRO.

Comments? Questions? You can email him here

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