IT departments offer tremendous value across an organization. For the IT manager, CIO, or other leaders looking to market the value of the IT department to the rest of an organization, there are several essential things to keep in mind.
Listen First
Service delivery within an organization can’t be treated as if one size fits all. A day in the life of the IT department looks different than a day in the life of legal, HR, or facilities. So, before marketing anything to anyone, it’s important to take the time to understand what people within an organization actually need.
Stay Focused on People
Once needs are understood, service management has to be adapted those needs. When an IT department’s processes are overly rigid or their solutions don’t have enough flexibility to be implemented well across departments, that will rightfully concern others within an organization.
Marketing the IT department to the rest of an organization requires demonstrating that IT understands people’s needs and has solutions that are fit to address those needs.
Communicate Service First
IT departments and tools boast an impressive list of capabilities. The organization as a whole isn’t interested in capabilities, though. Employees want to know how IT can serve them as they go about their day-to-day work and business leaders want to know how IT supports business objectives.
Effectively marketing the IT department to the rest of your organization will require telling the story in terms of service delivery, not technical capabilities. The rest of the organization needs to know that IT can help ensure business continuity, can get employees on-boarded more quickly, can help employees maintain the necessary tools to get their jobs done, and more.
Use Relatable Terms
Last but not least, recognize that IT is notorious for tech-speak and its use of acronyms. An ITSM solution may be ITIL-compliant and offer a great UX, but no one else in the company cares. Effectively marketing an IT department’s services to the rest of the organization requires ditching the tech jargon and clearly communicating benefits in terms that others will understand.
When this approach is taken to marketing an IT department, it becomes much harder for others within an organization to doubt the value of IT.