[hamstercat]

I used to work in another financial-related company and "IT is a cost not a revenue center" was thrown around as often as possible. Raise, promotion, formation, a computer made in this decade, anything really would get us that answer. Not only from my boss, but from the IT's top director in various meetings and one-on-one. I used to find it highly frustrating and unfair given that the company would cease to exists without our software, and that all new customers were acquired through new development in our software.

Now that I'm older and not working there anymore, I understand that it's a culture problem and that management just didn't know any better, but I've come to accept the fact that it was a great way to cut costs and get away with it. After all, they still have many employees and manage to make more profit year after year. It just made for a very demotivating environment.

[nostrademons]

The old "We are a tech company, we just happen to do retail/advertising/communication/movies/hospitality/transportation/payments better than you idiots" seems to be working pretty well for Amazon/Google/Facebook/Netflix/AirBnB/Uber/Lyft/Stripe.

[MR4D]

This makes me both sad and happy. Sad, because that’s such a shortsighted view; happy, because I run a small financial services company and we compete with them.

We’re prudent, we don’t like to waste money, and we analyze investments from every angle we can think of.

But we look at Tech (we don’t call it IT) as a profit center. We don’t invest in anything unless it can drive down costs, increase revenues, or is needed for regulatory or security reasons.

And when we pull the trigger, I want to make sure that we’ve got the best stuff on the market. Everyone uses either Macs or PCs (we’re agnostic), and run as many monitors as they need to feel productive. Everyone has an iPhone and an iPad. When the hurricane hit Houston, our office building was out of commission for over a week, but we kept running the business.

I want to make sure that Tech allows us to multiply our capabilities. We have a paperless office where any paper is scanned at hi-res, put into our systems and linked to client or regulatory records. Everything is shredded afterwards.

Long ago, I worked in IT, and was dumbfounded by the shortsightedness I saw inside companies who don’t know how to utilize IT. I love competing against those idiots now, because my capabilities are way higher and our cost structure is lower. If we didn’t have all our paper copies scanned in when the hurricane hit, we would have been dead in the water (sorry for the pun).

So, I really feel sorry for all those people who work for morons like the Parent describes, but here’s my recommendation: go start a company and run with your vision. You may fail a couple times (I did), but once you win - and it only takes once - you will never look back.

[caseysoftware]

THIS. This is the kind of company we should strive to work for.

Appreciating something just because it's novel is bullshit. Appreciating something that solves an actual problem effectively.. that's where I want to be.

[mmcconnell1618]

The IT-Business Maturity model fits here. Considering IT a "cost center" that takes orders is a Level 1 organization. Level 2 is about optimizing IT processes and Level 3 is the partnership of IT and Business on strategic goals. If a financial firm is treating IT as a cost instead of partner, they have some maturing to do.

http://formicio.com/index.php/archives/765

[Spooky23]

It’s funny that in the .gov space, I’ve seen management in agencies ranging from corrections to taxation to social services envision themselves as software companies, because it made sense. Every dollar invested in strategic tech produces $3-10 in outcome.

Ironically, the orgs responsible for technology “get it” the least, as they are in the business of ITIL bullshit and order filling. IT bureaucracy will spend $10,000 to save $0.10.

[samstave]

>I used to work in another financial-related company and "IT is a cost not a revenue center" was thrown around as often as possible

This has literally always been the case with IT; they were always seen as cost-centers, not profit.... which is largely due to IT departments historically falling under the CFO....

CEO: "Keep these motherfuckers from spending money"

IT: if "You want this [project] to meet your requirements of [XYZ]?, then == $2000000

CFO: "Fuck you, lets do it for half that and drop security and accessibility as a result"

[perseusprime11]

We actually dropped the CFO and life is beautiful.

[a012]

It's a common concept that many managements see IT/infrastructure as cost center, even their tech to be used to generate revenue. It boils down to minimize the systems to maximize shareholders value but requires high uptime.