The question put to IT directors was: What would you do with an extra £1million if the partnership suddenly turned round and gave you extra IT budget – no strings attached? Some answers are silly, some self promotion and some are serious but all are heartfelt.
“Fantasy IT, now there's a thing. I think I would use some of my £1m for firm-wide biometric single sign on and security system, the rest on an air conditioning installation, coke dispenser and a massive chocolate fountain!”
“I would use much of the money to employ a sizable team of Change Managers (with exceptional interpersonal skills and a whole raft of recognised qualifications from established business schools so they are taken seriously by the firm as a whole) and business analysts on a contract basis for a few years. I would then instruct them to trawl through the firm and evaluate and then re-engineer our legal and business processes to operate in the most efficient way possible pretty much using the skills, resources and technology already at the firms disposal. I would then suggest the firm puts a sizable chunk of this money in a bonus pool and put in place a reward structure / measurement system that recognises those people throughout the firm who are most instrumental in supporting this initiative and realising its benefits. The process I would begin with as part of this initiative would be those associated with the way in which we manage the relationships with our top 20% key/critical/target clients. From then on I would look to the project team to propose those groups of processes which are most likely to reap the most value from being re-engineered. I doubt any of the above would truly require significantly more or different technology than we already have so a very small % of the £1m would need to go on buying more / upgrading hardware / software / IT services.”
“I would hire Bill Kirby’s company to really get to grips with the strategy of the firm so that I could put forward a sensible proposal to support the business.” (Bill Kirby sent that one in).
“People would be high on our list. Additional people to work with users and paid for secondments from fee earning floors to be primary project support on efficiency projects in their groups. Also longer hours for standard support. Earlier starts and later finishes if not full 24/ 7. And greater change management/ internal communications expertise together with a state of the art training facility and ideas lab which people could call into.”
“The entire stock from Gina and Jimmy Choo followed by bags to match them all from Harvey Nicks.”
“I'd spend it on expertise, internally, (though that would need another million next year to cover salaries again, but if they're giving it away anyway :-). Why? To leverage all that shelf-ware we've got sitting around and which was supposed to make life easier for fee earners and make them more efficient (but which we never had time to do because of parachute projects). So rather than buy new stuff we'll never deploy I'd invest in some proper business analysis to engage with the users and then drive home the benefit of what we've already paid for. Either that or I'd have bought shares in VisualFiles!" (Who got bought out by a Lexis Nexis).
“Karen. If only! The most important point for me remains efficiency and aligning IT to the business and the customer which we already doing to some extent. So to answer the question I would initially spend the money on more business process re-engineering to increase the efficiency of the business and improve customer service.It would mean bringing in some extra expertise to agree the methodology and drive the process, create the business model, review the customer value chain, approve the changes and implement with an ongoing continuous improvement process as part of the forward culture. Any money left over would have to go into system development/ product to support changes/ direction identified. So, when can I have it?”
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