Most IT staffs are aggressive - and the branch is getting much attention!

Branch Office Best Practices Newsletter [1], By Robin Gareiss [2], Network World [3], 02/20/07

As I mentioned last week, companies that have embraced the concept of a “virtual workplace” most commonly have what they classify as bleeding-edge or aggressive IT cultures.

Not too surprising, but there is a tight link between a forward-thinking, go-get-‘em IT staff and a virtual workplace. Now, before I get letters to the contrary, I am not suggesting that conservative or moderate IT staffs are backward-thinking because they’re not. They can be very strategic, but they typically let others work the bugs out of new technology before they invest in it.

In Nemertes’ upcoming Building a Successful Virtual Workplace benchmark, we asked participants to describe their IT culture by selecting one of four types: bleeding edge, aggressive, moderate, and conservative. This week, I’ll give you some details on the “aggressive” IT culture. The largest percentage of participants - 41% - in our research identified themselves as aggressive.

Just to remind you of the overall figures, branch offices are growing at 11% year over year from 2006 to 2007 (up from 8.9% between 2005 and 2006). But that 11% is truly an average. A deeper dive into the data illustrates the growth in the number of branch offices can be significantly greater among some organizations.

Those who defined their IT organizations as aggressive have the second-smallest number of branch locations, 244 on average. But they have the second-largest percentage of growth in their branch offices, at 42%. They also have the largest percentage of virtual workers, at about 27%.

Aggressive IT organizations oversee companies that are smaller, relative to the other three categories. They, too, want to leverage IT, but they are not the always the first to use a new technology, as is the case with bleeding-edge companies. If I were running an IT organization, this is the culture I’d want to have - one that leverages technology fairly early in the adoption curve, but not too early that it poses great risk.

Often, aggressive companies are midsize organizations that must effectively compete with global enterprises, or in the case of education, larger and more reputable schools. They must carefully time their investment in IT so that it’s not too risky but gives them a competitive advantage over conservative enterprises who wait a few years before implementing new technology. As such, they are interested in cutting real-estate costs in urban areas in exchange for small branch locations.

But in doing so, they want to make sure the employees at those branch locations are not “out of site, out of mind.” Keeping them productive is key to making the whole virtual thing work! So, they’re evaluating and investing in collaborative technologies, such as conferencing (Web, voice, and video), presence, instant messaging, CRM integration with VoIP, and shared workspaces, among other things.

Next week, I’ll explore those organizations that view their IT culture as “moderate.” In the meantime, if you want more information on the data contained in the branch office research, e-mail me [4].