When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers
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@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
So now the question becomes... how much IT work does someone do in position X before they are classified as a buyer or hirer of IT rather than IT themselves?
When I try to answer to this question, it seems that the problem of "classifying" is only with people titled "IT manager" or similar, or others that make IT decisions.
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
Managing IT means you understand what you are doing and using those skills to make decisions, just at a manager level.
Let's think of an example where "IT manager" knows IT very well, makes good decisions, but he outsource everything (no other IT employees).
Can he be good IT manager? Probably yes.
Is he Buyer or Doer? If I understand Scott, he is Buyer?
Does it stop even being IT? I think not.Let's think of example where "IT manager" is incompetent, makes bad decisions and outsource everything.
What is the difference between these two? Just that the second one is incompetent
Does it stop even being IT? YES - but just becuse he is incompetent.So I think term "Buyers" should not mean that such person is "not IT themselves".
If we agree on that, we can differentiate Buying vs Doing quite easily.
And I think most GOOD poeple in SMB IT are partly buyers, partly doers.
I do not see need or possibility to "draw a line" between Buyers nad Doers, and classify people in one of two boxes. -
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
IT's primary value is in evaluating options, often an insanely broad range of them in loads of highly disparate arenas, and taking into account all the tech stuff, and applying all of the applicable business stuff, and making a decision as to all kinds of things that might involve.. buying software, hiring programmers for bespoke software, buying hardware, how a network is designed, who is hired, where they work, and on and on.
It seems to me that IT is just different (than examples in my prevoius post) because it is hard to find person who understand business needs and have deep knowledge of various IT solutions available in various IT fields as SAM described in this quote.
I don't believe that it's hard to find people, because nearly everyone you find that knows this stuff struggles to get hired while those with zero skills or clue are readily hired. I think it's more that finding a competent CEO is really hard and they don't want to admit that they dont know what they are doing and tend to favour people who pander to their egos rather than those that do the job. If a CEO actually wanted good work, it's not hard to find people. If every CEO cared, we'd run out of people fast, but in the real world, there's a lot of great people and companies with loads of excess capacity wishing companies would let them do a good job for them.
I am CEO, trying to find person to manage IT. I am on different market then you are. Skilled IT people usually work for companies from richer European countries, or US companies (taking over your jobs there).
I agree, it is hard to find competent CEO. But it is also hard to find competent IT people that understands business.
Most IT people find general business problems "boring" so they are not motivated to understand them. Most expect that somebody else "define needs or problems", and then they can find or give solution.
Good IT manager will see needs and problems that general management does not see, and add value to company in that way.Same is in Finance (my primary proffession). I came here, saw a lot of mistakes nobody knew about, and I have added a lot of value where nobody see the possibilities. Problems that I was hired for in the beginning where only part of what I've done.
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@Mario-Jakovina You make some good points and are certainly right that many IT do not try to understand the business aspect. Of course it can also be argued that if you don't understand business, are you really doing IT correctly.
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@jmoore said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
Of course it can also be argued that if you don't understand business, are you really doing IT correctly.
Exactly. IT that does not understand business can also make lot of bad decisions (if allowed).
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@scottalanmiller Now, when I saw your video, I understand that "IT Buyer" for you definitely means "Uncompetent IT Buyer"
I don't see why you use plain term Buyer for such bad example. What if someone defines "IT Doer" as somebody who is uncompetent in doing IT...It seems you think you saw a lot of examples of CIOs not adding value.
But then that means they have uncompetent CEOs who have uncompetent business owners...
I find it hard to believe that it is common in SMBs. How do they survive in competitive markets?
In governement owned organisations - probably this is often the case. -
@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller Now, when I saw your video, I understand that "IT Buyer" for you definitely means "Uncompetent IT Buyer"
I don't see why you use plain term Buyer for such bad example. What if someone defines "IT Doer" as somebody who is uncompetent in doing IT...It seems you think you saw a lot of examples of CIOs not adding value.
But then that means they have uncompetent CEOs who have uncompetent business owners...
I find it hard to believe that it is common in SMBs. How do they survive in competitive markets?
In governement owned organisations - probably this is often the case.Based on my experience, I would guess that most profitable SMBs aren't operating in a competitive market. And if that market becomes competitive, they do not survive.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I don't see why you use plain term Buyer for such bad example.
Because the question wasn't about "buyer" being bad. It was about defining when someone is a buyer vs. a doer. It was people reading the thread and taking offense who introduce the connotation that being a buyer was a negative.
That's a huge problem that we have in IT. So many roles... manager, buyer, bench tech... people associate them with shame so they try to make up cooler titles and pretend to do something that they think sounds better like admin, engineer, director.
I've never suggested that being a buyer is bad. Being a buyer when there is already a buyer and your sole purpose is to be the doer, now that's bad.
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@flaxking said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller Now, when I saw your video, I understand that "IT Buyer" for you definitely means "Uncompetent IT Buyer"
I don't see why you use plain term Buyer for such bad example. What if someone defines "IT Doer" as somebody who is uncompetent in doing IT...It seems you think you saw a lot of examples of CIOs not adding value.
But then that means they have uncompetent CEOs who have uncompetent business owners...
I find it hard to believe that it is common in SMBs. How do they survive in competitive markets?
In governement owned organisations - probably this is often the case.Based on my experience, I would guess that most profitable SMBs aren't operating in a competitive market. And if that market becomes competitive, they do not survive.
That's absolutely true IMHO and a great perspective on it.
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@flaxking to follow on that, I had a discussion with investors just last week where we talked about why it would be better to build competing businesses right across the street from existing companies, than to buy those companies, because it's more cost effective to put them out of business by doing a good job than to buy them and take on all of their bad decisions in the past!
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@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
It seems you think you saw a lot of examples of CIOs not adding value.
This should not be "seems". I'm telling you, this is the norm by a huge margin.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
But then that means they have uncompetent CEOs who have uncompetent business owners...
Right, which should go without saying. Remember the average SMB fails, completely. Most that survive barely do. The market is full of total incompetence.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I find it hard to believe that it is common in SMBs. How do they survive in competitive markets?
They don't. First, because almost none that you see have competition of any sort. And even so, the vast majority of SMBs fail. Of those very, very few that survive, most only become orbital. The insanely rare successful SMB almost always stop being SMBs very quickly.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I understand that "IT Buyer" for you definitely means "Uncompetent IT Buyer"
Absolutely not. It means nothing of the sort. Where did you get that impression?
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Yes, I'm saying that the majority of CEOs and CIOs are really, really bad at what they do. And every bit of market info we has 100% supports that.
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@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I understand that "IT Buyer" for you definitely means "Uncompetent IT Buyer"
Absolutely not. It means nothing of the sort. Where did you get that impression?
In your 1st video - you try to explain and then u say "purely buyers".
Now, in your last video, you also argue that "average is bad, very bad"... so you confirm that you speak of uncompetenet ones, mostly.
But OK.... -
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
Yes, I'm saying that the majority of CEOs and CIOs are really, really bad at what they do. And every bit of market info we has 100% supports that.
I agree with what you explain in this video (most startups fails, average is bad in most fields, Mangolassi is creme...)
I worked for 12 years as SMB banker, get to know many of SMBs deeply...But I didn't thought that failing startups, with few employees, have relevance for your points. I don'f find common that small startups have 150.000$ IT bugets, or CIOs that actually do nothing. I think that happens at larger SMBs.
I think you should exclude companies that fail in few years from your arguments, because they distort statistics. They make large percent in number of companies, but small percent of employees, market share....
Again, I agree with what you say in this video
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@flaxking said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
Based on my experience, I would guess that most profitable SMBs aren't operating in a competitive market. And if that market becomes competitive, they do not survive.
Here is how I see it:
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Most SMBs fail in first years - that is natural...
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They fail becuse they are in competitive market - If they don't have competition, they could easiliy raise their prices and survive, no matter how bad they are at business
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It is also natural that most survivors are not very profitable - If many are very profitable then new players enter market...
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After all above, it is normal that most very profitable SMBs (that do not grow fast and stop be SMBs) are in market niches where it is hard for newcomers to enter (low competitive niches).
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Generally competition drives extra profits to zero. That's why large succesfull company try to make their market less competitive (branding, patenting bullshits
My point is - I don't see many companies in non-competitive environment
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@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I understand that "IT Buyer" for you definitely means "Uncompetent IT Buyer"
Absolutely not. It means nothing of the sort. Where did you get that impression?
In your 1st video - you try to explain and then u say "purely buyers".
Now, in your last video, you also argue that "average is bad, very bad"... so you confirm that you speak of uncompetenet ones, mostly.
But OK....In all cases, but the doers are bad on average too. So it's not connection to being buyers.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
But I didn't thought that failing startups, with few employees, have relevance for your points. I don'f find common that small startups have 150.000$ IT bugets, or CIOs that actually do nothing. I think that happens at larger SMBs.
Startups often have bigger budgets because they know that they have to spend and lose up front, whereas an operational company will often try to live within its revenue limits.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I think you should exclude companies that fail in few years from your arguments, because they distort statistics. They make large percent in number of companies, but small percent of employees, market share....
Maybe, but they are the majority of what IT deals with. If you exclude them, it also distorts the stats by eliminating the majority of bad business people - but our careers don't eliminate them. In the real world we deal with failing or orbital businesses constantly, it's not like they fail silently in the background and IT doesn't have to deal with it.
