As the economic downturn tightens IT budgets and places scrutiny on projects, for many IT managers, the primary focus becomes maintaining daily operations while forfeiting innovative projects in the short term. But should innovation in IT be sidelined when money is scarce? The answer might depend on how an organization defines innovation.
If innovation is perceived as technology that is novel, however advantageous to the organization, that could prove a difficult sell to line of business leaders who may prefer to maintain the status quo during hard times. However, instead of defining innovation as new technology, IT managers would benefit by viewing innovation as new ways to use technology that’s already there.
With tight budgets, real innovation lies in the ingenuity with which old technologies are applied differently to solve novel problems. The idea that IT departments can save the money and labour they would otherwise have spent on a new deployment by re-using existing investments will be a far easier sell to the business.
So, if anything, times of economic crisis are exactly when IT managers should be flexing their creative brawn in order to stretch those dollars. Those that perceive innovation as not just the technology, but the creative application of it, won’t feel stifled when IT spending gets cut. They can continue thinking out of the box, rather than just being relegated to keeping the usual operations running.