X is (kinda) for eXperts' eXodus

Sorry, I'm resorting to cheating a bit for X. But I know I'll be in good company...

Back in the early days, any business that invested in a computer had little choice but to create an IT department to look after it, program it, and craft a network around it.

As the industry has matured, various aspects of IT have transformed from dark art to predictable engineering, and from niche specialty to wholesale commodity.

And as soon as something becomes a commodity you can buy off the peg, why would you waste time doing it for yourself? You want to be free to do what you do best.

Taxi companies don't keep a car manufacturing plant in the back yard. They buy their vehicles from people whose business it is to make them. That leaves them free to deal with their business of moving passengers around.

This makes sense for a lot of things in the IT world too - servers, workstations, whole networks, and many mundane business applications, can be bought in where needed and scaled up easily.

But, you can have too much of a good thing

The trend now is to see everything IT as a commodity, and something you should best ship out the door to the experts, because IT is not your core business. As a result, many of those in-house IT shops have been entirely disbanded and outsourced.

And with them often goes a lot of competitive expertise.

Why does that matter, if your business is not IT?

IT is all about enabling your business processes, about making them smoother, more efficient, or smarter. Even enabling you to do things you could never have done in the past. The thing is, some of those processes are what give you a competitive edge. They are what distinguish you from all the other folks in the same business as you.

Suppose your business is manufacturing - I don't really care what you manufacture - but suppose your competitive edge comes from outstanding client relationships. You have long-lasting, trusting relationships and you can anticipate what your clients will need next, what is important to them, and can suggest new ways you can meet their needs. This fruitful partnership is what keeps them coming back to you rather than to your competitors.

In that case, you probably want a top class client relationship management system. One that intimately supports how you have chosen to do business. 

Sure, there are lots of such systems out there, but how are you going to rise above your competition if you are using the same software that they are? This is an area where you need to be doing something that none of them are doing.

And how can you keep doing what you do best if the software insists you bend your process to fit its limitations? IT itself may not be your core business, but you'd better be sure that IT is in very close harmony with those parts of your business that are core.

The only way to achieve that is to keep the development and evolution of that key enabling software very close to your heart. The best people to do that are people who have skin in the game, who understand your business and care about its success, in other words ... your own employees.