Protecting and Developing Your Company's Assets

by Mark Fung-A-Fat

What are your most valuable assets? For many companies, especially those in the knowledge-based industries, their first response is: "Our people are our most important asset(s)." Interestingly, while for many senior executives this idea may hold true, there is confusion between the business and technical staff in terms of how they -- IT staff members -- are viewed and treated. In a recent gathering I attended of several friends, all working in IT fields in various sized firms and industries, many of them reported that the general feeling in their areas was that IT staff members are treated as second-class citizens. If people are a company's most important asset, why do IT staffers feel alienated? Are they any less of an asset to a company than the business staff? Executives on both sides of the aisle are keenly aware of the cultural gap that exists between IT and the rest of the business; in many articles and publications, authors openly and frequently call for the CIO, the IT leader in many companies, to think and act more like a business partner than a technologist.