Neglecting IT

From Support Function to Business Necessity

There was a time when information technology was treated as a support function—important, but separate from the “real business.” The technology team maintained systems and generated reports, while business leaders made the decisions.

That world has disappeared.

Today, technology is no longer merely a component of an enterprise. It has become part of its nervous system. It influences how quickly a company responds, how accurately it understands customers, how efficiently it manages costs and how confidently it prepares for the future.

Neglecting IT is no longer a harmless oversight. It can weaken competitiveness, decision-making and even the relevance of individual employees.

Good CIOs understand this transformation. They do not simply purchase software or maintain infrastructure. They use technology to improve revenue-critical processes, enhance customer experiences, reduce waste and create measurable business value.

Technology now supports almost every organisational activity. Analytics reveal which products are performing and where profitability is being lost. Customer-service platforms improve interactions. Procurement solutions manage expenses, while automation supports sales, finance, logistics, communication and after-sales service.

Technology therefore supports both the daily functioning of a business and its ability to change.

Can an Employee Afford to Ignore Technology?

The more personal question is: can an employee afford to neglect IT?

Can someone become an effective manager without understanding how technology can improve performance? Can a leader continue depending on delayed reports and decisions based mainly on intuition?

Perhaps for a while. But not indefinitely.

I have often asked colleagues a simple question: “What new automation have you planned for your unit?”

The answers have frequently been disappointing.

Many people are comfortable using social media, messaging applications and entertainment platforms. Yet when asked how technology could improve their professional responsibilities, they struggle to respond.

This contrast has always interested me.

Human beings adopt technology quickly when it provides pleasure, convenience or social recognition. We learn new applications to communicate, shop, watch entertainment or share photographs. But when learning requires us to question a familiar work routine, resistance suddenly appears.

The difficulty is rarely the technology itself. It is often the change in behaviour that technology demands.

Why We Resist Technology at Work

A salesperson may resist entering every customer interaction into a customer relationship management system because personal notes feel faster.

A store employee may avoid updating inventory digitally because the old register is familiar.

A manager may continue asking for printed reports because dashboards make performance more transparent.

Technology can expose delays, inconsistencies and weak decisions. It can reveal that a salesperson has not followed up with customers, that stock has been purchased poorly or that complaints have remained unresolved.

That makes technology useful—but also uncomfortable.

This is why neglecting IT is not merely a technical issue. It is a human one.

People often resist technology because it challenges their sense of competence. A new system can make an experienced employee feel like a beginner again. It can disturb informal authority, expose hidden inefficiencies and reduce dependence on knowledge held by only one person.

Whenever I encountered this reluctance, I felt compelled to push a simple agenda within the organisation:

Think. Think again. Find ways to use technology in your professional life.

Discovering the Hidden CIO Within

Every employee, in some sense, needs to discover a hidden CIO within.

This does not mean that everyone must become a programmer or understand complex software architecture. It means developing the habit of asking better questions.

Which repetitive activity can be automated? Which decision would improve with more accurate data? Which customer frustration can be removed? Where are delays occurring? What information is available but not being converted into action?

These questions transform employees from passive users of technology into active contributors to business improvement.

An employee who thinks this way does not wait for the IT department to identify every problem. The employee understands the work closely enough to recognise opportunities for improvement and then collaborates with technology specialists to create a solution.

What Technology Can Reveal in Retail

Consider a retail store. At first glance, the business may appear straightforward: purchase goods, display them attractively and sell them.

Yet even a traditional physical store generates valuable information every day.

Which shirt sizes sell fastest? Which fabrics move during the wedding season? Which colours remain unsold? Which customers return regularly? How many enquiries are lost because a product is unavailable? How long does tailoring delivery actually take?

If this information remains in the memories of individual employees, the business is fragile. When someone leaves, much of the knowledge leaves too. Decisions are based on impressions, personal preferences and incomplete recollections.

When information is captured systematically, the store can forecast demand, improve buying decisions, reduce excess stock and communicate better with customers.

Imagine a customer visiting a menswear store in search of a navy-blue suit. The required size is unavailable.

In a poorly connected business, the conversation ends there. The salesperson apologises, the customer leaves and the opportunity is forgotten.

In a technology-enabled business, the salesperson can check stock at another location, record the customer’s requirement, suggest a suitable alternative or send a message when the product arrives.

The difference is not simply software. The difference is an employee who understands how to use technology to preserve a customer relationship.

Small Improvements Create Large Advantages

The same principle applies in larger organisations.

Procurement managers can negotiate better prices through consolidated purchasing data. Sales managers can identify where prospects are leaving the pipeline. Service heads can analyse repeated complaints, while regional managers can compare the performance of different locations in real time.

A warehouse supervisor may identify that dispatch delays occur because approvals are still being taken through email. A finance executive may notice that employees repeatedly submit incomplete expense claims. A customer-service representative may observe that the same question is being answered hundreds of times.

Each problem may appear small in isolation. But when technology is used to address them, the benefits accumulate.

A five-minute delay removed from a process repeated thousands of times can create substantial savings. One better stock alert can prevent lost sales. A simple automated reminder can improve collections or reduce missed customer follow-ups.

Technology does not always have to produce dramatic transformation. Often, its greatest value comes from steadily removing friction.

Technology Cannot Remain a Top-Down Initiative

Technology adoption cannot remain a top-down initiative driven only by the CIO or the IT department. It must also grow from the bottom upwards.

Employees closest to daily operations usually understand the real problems better than anyone else. They see the repeated complaint, unnecessary approval, duplicate data entry, missing information and avoidable delay.

When these employees suggest technological improvements, the effect compounds across the organisation.

This bottom-up approach also strengthens the CIO.

The CIO is then compelled to connect technology with products, customers, profitability and competition. Like the CFO, who uses financial expertise to influence enterprise strategy, the CIO must use technical expertise from a business perspective.

A credible CIO needs to understand the company’s products and services, revenue drivers, competitors and organisational dynamics. Technology choices cannot be made in isolation from these realities.

The ultimate responsibility of the CIO is to build a technology vision based on the company’s business vision.

Strategy Is Only as Good as Execution

A strong technology strategy can provide direction and motivation to the entire organisation. But strategy alone is never enough.

A strategy is only as good as the organisation’s ability to execute it.

This is where the average employee becomes vital again.

A company may invest in excellent systems, but if employees enter incomplete information, ignore alerts or continue running parallel manual processes, the system will fail to deliver its promised value.

Technology projects often fail not because of poor software, but because people do not change their habits.

A customer relationship management system filled with inaccurate information cannot guide sales decisions. An inventory system that is not updated regularly cannot prevent stock shortages. An analytics dashboard based on incomplete data cannot provide reliable insights.

Execution requires discipline, consistency and honesty.

Technology Forces Us to Face Reality

A great executive is often distinguished from a merely good one by the ease with which he or she confronts facts.

Technology makes facts more visible.

A dashboard may show that targets are being missed. A service platform may expose recurring complaints. An inventory system may reveal poor purchasing decisions. An attendance system may identify productivity gaps.

The natural human tendency is sometimes to blame the system, question the data or avoid the report.

Mature organisations respond differently. They use uncomfortable information as the beginning of a useful conversation.

Leaders must ask whether teams have the skills and capacity to implement change. Employees must be encouraged to raise red flags early, debate solutions and learn from mistakes.

Leadership is not merely about posing questions or demanding answers. It is about creating an environment where reality can be discussed without fear.

Technology supports this process by making patterns visible. But people must still have the courage to examine them.

The Danger of Becoming a Floating Employee

No employee can afford to remain “floating”—disconnected from the systems, information and changing environment around them.

A floating employee performs assigned tasks but does not understand how those tasks affect customers, costs or organisational performance. Such an employee may remain busy without becoming genuinely valuable.

Professional relevance today depends not only on completing work, but also on improving how that work is performed.

Employees who embrace technology often become more entrepreneurial. They understand costs, customer expectations, performance measures and operational dependencies.

Instead of waiting for the IT department to guide them, they approach it with clearer business requirements.

They do not simply say, “We need new software.”

They explain the problem, the desired result and the business impact.

This ability distinguishes tomorrow’s leaders from employees who are merely comfortable with yesterday’s methods.

Technology Must Follow a Business Purpose

Embracing IT does not mean chasing every fashionable application or investing in technology for its own sake.

Technology without purpose creates complexity.

Organisations sometimes buy expensive systems because competitors are using them or because a particular term has become popular. Employees may demand automation without understanding the underlying problem.

The right approach must remain business-first.

Identify the problem. Understand the desired outcome. Examine the process. Then determine how technology can help.

A simple spreadsheet may sometimes be more useful than an expensive enterprise platform. A messaging alert may solve a problem more effectively than a complex dashboard. The objective is not to appear technologically advanced. It is to become operationally effective.

Technology is valuable only when it makes the business clearer, faster, more responsive or more profitable.

How Technology Influenced My Own Career

I have always supported the use of technology in my day-to-day work. Over the years, I have seen how it improves not only speed and productivity, but also personal credibility.

When you enter a discussion with better information, clearer analysis and practical solutions, people begin to see you differently.

You are no longer merely reporting a problem. You are helping the organisation understand and solve it.

Technology helped me look beyond the immediate task and examine the process behind it. It allowed me to ask why delays occurred, why customers behaved in a particular manner and why certain decisions produced better results than others.

That perspective helped me immensely as I moved up the corporate ladder.

It also reinforced my belief that technology is not the private territory of the IT department. It is a professional tool available to anyone willing to think, learn and experiment.

Fear Is Not a Sustainable Technology Strategy

It is tempting to say that employees neglecting IT should be at the top of the firing list.

There is some justification behind that frustration. An employee who repeatedly refuses to learn can slow down an entire team and weaken the organisation’s ability to compete.

Yet fear alone rarely creates meaningful transformation.

People may resist technology because they lack confidence, training, time or a clear understanding of its value. They may have experienced poorly implemented systems in the past. They may believe automation is intended to replace them rather than support them.

The better response is to create both expectation and support.

Organisations should make digital learning part of professional development. Managers should reward employees who simplify processes, improve data quality and propose useful automation.

Employees, in turn, must accept that refusing to learn is no longer a neutral choice.

The greatest risk is not being unfamiliar with a particular system today. Systems will keep changing.

The real risk is developing a mindset that says:

“This is not my responsibility.”

Improvement Is Everyone’s Responsibility

Technology is everyone’s responsibility because improvement is everyone’s responsibility.

The future manager will not necessarily be the person who knows the most technical terms. It will be the person who can connect business needs, human behaviour and technological possibilities.

It will be someone who recognises inefficiency, asks intelligent questions, confronts uncomfortable facts and guides people through change.

The question is therefore no longer whether IT matters. The question is whether we are willing to see it, understand it and use it as part of our own professional growth. Do we want to be remembered as people who adapted, contributed and improved the organisation?

Or do we want to be seen as people who kept neglecting IT until the organisation learned to move ahead without us?