IT Marketing: The Next Big Thing in ITIT Marketing: The Next Big Thing in IT

Nearly two thirds of IT professionals say the “ability to communicate verbally” is a newly desired skill in their new hires, and 47% say the “ability to write” is a skill they’re seeking.

Numerous IT leaders have lamented a great technology rollout that goes nowhere. They implement paradigm-shifting technologies for their organizations--everything from multi-faceted video conferencing to social media to advanced mobile devices and apps. But, within a few months, they realize no one is using the technologies.

Nearly every time we evaluate these situations for our clients, the problem is a lack of communications and marketing. And is it any wonder? IT leaders and IT staff are not marketing experts, nor are they expected to be.

Or are they?

Moving forward, having technology education and experience won't be enough for most organizations. They'll be moving many of the tactical technology functions to cloud or managed service providers. What will be left in corporate IT? A diverse mixture of experts, including:

• Technology experts, who will run crucial systems not outsourced
• Technology experts focused on emerging technologies' relevance to the organization
• Project/program managers, who run IT projects
• Business-technology experts, who focus on bridging the gap between business and technology teams
• Technology marketing experts, who focus on communicating the value of new technology to the company

I want to focus on the technology marketing experts--a class I believe will be in demand in coming years. In fact, in our recently released Enterprise Technology Benchmark, nearly two thirds of IT professionals say the "ability to communicate verbally" is a newly desired skill in their new hires, and 47% say the "ability to write" is a skill they're seeking.

This ability to communicate is relevant in many areas of IT. But marketing is crucial. Countless companies have spent time, energy, and money rolling out spectacular new technologies--those that will increase revenue, decrease costs, bolster competitiveness, and help employees collaborate with one another and with customers. The understaffed IT staff wraps up the rollout, and then quickly move on to the next project, without any time (or interest, in many cases) to figure out how to make sure employees actually use the new offerings.

Meanwhile, cloud providers are marketing directly to your customers--the business units!

Some leading-edge organizations engage the internal marketing or corporate communications teams. But that presupposes the company has an internal marketing or corporate communications team--and that the team has a desire to help IT.

As IT budgets continue to stay flat or decline (60% of companies fall into this bucket for 2014), and as business units become more demanding and knowledgeable about technology, IT leaders must hire people who can actually market the technology they provide.

Without this self-promotion, IT runs the risk of becoming irrelevant and non-strategic. Think about the growing number of employees who consider themselves tech-savvy. Indeed, they're more savvy than previous generations. They already question the relevance of IT because they believe they can do it on their own or through cloud providers (thus, the emergence of the "shadow IT" budget).

IT must market itself internally, make employees realize how they can benefit from the new technologies, and raise its stature within the company. The results will be an increase in IT's ability to serve as a trusted-advisor to the business units. That, in turn, results in IT's involvement in strategic decision-making and innovative projects--and ultimately more budget and more job security.

The challenge, of course, is these people are hard to find. You basically need someone with the technical skills to understand technology, and the business/marketing/communications skills to effectively showcase new offerings to employees. Some universities are working on partnerships between their technical, marketing, and communications colleges.

Partnerships with universities is a great way to find people with this expertise. In fact, if you're not partnering with a university already, reach out to me at [email protected], and I'd be happy to provide further insight.

The key is to be thinking hard about how you're going to market IT capabilities moving forward. Your competitors--the cloud providers--have resources to market their services to your customers, the business units. Don't get left in the cold!