IT Department - Business Engine or Service? My Perspective as CTO

In modern business, the IT department is often perceived either as a necessary evil and a 'black hole' for the budget, or as some kind of magic wand that should solve all problems with a single click. As a CTO with many years of experience and a proponent of the PAEI methodology (by Ichak Adizes), I see that the truth lies in the realm of hard pragmatism. We won't talk about Agile or Scrum today – if your business is in chaos, trendy words won't help you. We will talk about how to build a foundation that can withstand both an emergency server breakdown costing a couple of million and an ambitious leap towards Big Data.

This article is a reflection on how to create a structure that can be a quiet service when everything is stable, and a powerful booster when the business is ready to outpace competitors.

1. Budgeting: How to Stop Being a 'Black Box'

The main pain point for any manager is not understanding where millions are going. For financiers and accounting, the IT budget often looks like a list of magic spells: 'switch,' 'licenses,' 'trunks.' Our task is to make this box transparent and prove that every dollar works towards reliability.

Business Context and Scale

Before drawing up tables, we need to honestly answer: where are we? In a small business where everything is bought 'by receipt,' or in a holding company with a Shared Service Center (SSC)? If risk management fundamentally doesn't exist in the company, it's pointless to demand it only from IT. But if we are building a system, we start with the fundamental principles of planning: monthly, quarterly, and annual budgets.

CAPEX vs OPEX: The Battle for Predictability

In our market conditions, the question often arises: build our own server room or go entirely into the cloud?

Own hardware (CAPEX): This gives a sense of control and ownership. But remember: a good engineer in the server room might seem idle as long as everything works. But when the Zabbix monitoring system turns red, only their unique skills, experience, and composure will determine whether the business is down for a day or five minutes. However, there's a huge risk here – a sudden server breakdown costing two million tenge can punch a hole in the budget that no one is prepared for.
Clouds (OPEX): This isn't always cheaper, but it's predictable. For a CFO, a steady payment schedule for SaaS or IaaS is more important than a one-time perceived saving followed by a catastrophe. Clouds eliminate the question 'where do we get money for a new server right now?'

Standardization as a Survival Strategy

If you have 10 branches and each has different equipment, you're working for a pharmacy. Create a single standard. Choose 2-3 reliable contractors and establish personal relationships with them. This isn't lobbying; it's survival. Keep a 'replacement fund' in the warehouse – the same routers, printer fusers, or spare power supplies. In a volatile market with logistical disruptions, buying consumables now while there's a budget isn't freezing capital; it's insurance against shortages. If accounting objects, go to the CEO and explain the cost of downtime due to a missing cartridge or router.

Emergency Cases and SLA

No 'fuck-up funds'. Instead, work with lawyers. If printers or the network are serviced by a contractor, the contract should state: 'the part must be in stock within 4 hours'. If it's not, it's the contractor's problem and their penalties, not your headache.

2. Effective Structure and Competence Boundaries

The IT department should be immersed in business processes but shouldn't be involved in everything.

Where Do the Boundaries of Responsibility Lie?

If a process involves data transfer, automation, or security – we are there. If not – we have no business there. The worst thing an IT director can do is start teaching an accountant how to calculate taxes or a logistics specialist how to build routes. We provide tools, we don't dictate expertise.

However, everything that plugs into an outlet and transmits bytes must pass through the IT filter. If the Security Service bought cameras themselves, and then it turns out that the current network can't handle them – that's the CTO's fault for not setting boundaries in time. 'Figure something out, you're smart' – this is a phrase you shouldn't hear if your control processes are properly established.

Transparency vs. Bureaucracy

I genuinely hate statements like: 'Please replace the cartridge in the marketing department...'. This is an anachronism that kills productivity.

Ticket system and ERP: Every action must be digitized. This is not for tracking the admin, but for protecting the IT department itself. The system immediately shows: what we are doing, why, and what benefit it brings.
Business Value Language: When you go to management, don't talk about 'accelerating the channel by 2% by configuring access lists on Cisco.' Say: 'We ensured stable warehouse operations during peak shipping hours by eliminating system freezes.' This is the language for which the business is willing to pay and reward.

Shadow IT: Lead, Don't Fight

Shadow IT (when marketers buy CRM or cloud storage themselves) is a signal that the IT department seems like a bottleneck to the business.

My position: You are not the police; you are an expert council. 'Guys, do you need this CRM? Okay, here's a checklist of security and integration requirements. Go through it with the vendor, and we'll approve it.' This maintains control over the infrastructure without turning IT into a 'bottleneck' for progress.

3. Transformation into a Profit Center

Many are used to IT only spending. It's time to change the paradigm. How to transform a service team into a revenue-generating unit?

Saved = Earned

If, after department reform and employee training, you were able to forgo expensive external outsourcing services (e.g., for telephony support or specific software) by taking on the workload yourself – you earned that money. A CTO must be a strategist: what's more profitable in the long run – paying for a SIP trunk and cloud PBX or hiring your own engineer who will set up and administer Asterisk?

Data Mining: The New Oil of Your Business

Data is an asset that often lies dormant. The IT department can become profitable if it starts providing deep analytics to the business.

Practical example: In a shopping mall or retail, based on ordinary video surveillance, you can build heat maps. Where do people walk more often? Where are the points of interest? This analytics can be sold to tenants, helping them increase conversion.
Tools: You don't necessarily need to buy licenses for millions of dollars. Start with Open Source solutions (Metabase, Superset). Aggregate everything: from water meters to receipts. When you show the owner a pattern that no one else in the company has seen, you will stop being 'service personnel'.

4. Team: Rotation, Evaluation, and Managing 'Geniuses'

Even if the department is headed by someone far removed from IT (due to circumstances), the department can still run like clockwork.

Knowledge Audit and the Myth of Irreplaceability

'Sacred knowledge' of one admin is a myth invented by admins themselves to avoid being fired. In serious business, this is unacceptable. If your employee says: 'Only I know how this works, and I won't document it' – prepare for their replacement.

Advice for non-technical managers: Don't play the dictator. Acknowledge that you might not distinguish Java from JavaScript. Find the most talented and loyal technician within the department, make them your deputy, and prepare them for your position in the future. The best option is to grow a 'tech-leader' into a 'business-leader'.

Rotation and Staffing: Why It's Normal?

There's no universal formula '1 IT specialist per N users'. The department is bloated if you have 4 people for 4 servers, and everyone pretends to be busy. But if one person administers telephony, access control, and Active Directory – they will mess up at the most critical moment.

Rotation as a cure: If a person sits in the console for 5 years looking at the same tunnels – they stagnate. Give them a junior, and move the 'old-timer' to information security or data science. A change of focus often gives experienced employees a second wind and protects the company from their 'ossification'.

Toxic Geniuses

Smart, but acts like a pig? Undermines the atmosphere in the department?

My solution: Tolerate them only until you prepare their replacement. Duplicate passwords, back up configs, check access rights. Fire them the moment you are sure they won't 'slam the door' in such a way that everything crashes. Team atmosphere (Adizes' I factor) is more important in the long run than a one-time technical feat by a single person. No one is irreplaceable – LinkedIn and hiring sites work around the clock.

5. Choosing the Path: When to Turn on the Ignition?

An IT director must be empathetic to the state of the business and be able to change roles in time.

IT as a Business Engine

This is not a moment on the calendar; it's a CTO's state of mind. When you see that implementing a mobile application for couriers or a self-service system for clients will boost sales – go and prove it. Show examples of competitors, hit them with loss figures. If you see room for growth – do it immediately, enhancing the company's image and your own status.

IT as Service (Survival Mode)

You need to be able to admit: not everything depends on IT. During periods of crisis, political turmoil, or market crashes, it's not the time to build 'spaceships'. A good CTO knows how to 'land', limit resources to the necessary minimum, and simply provide reliable support while management saves the ship. This doesn't mean you've become worse – it means you've become a partner who understands the context.

Conclusion: The true success of an IT department is not in the newest servers or trendy methodologies. It lies in the balance between 'P' (Producing Results) and 'A' (Administering Processes). Be the one who knows when to hit the gas and when to simply ensure the engine runs smoothly and doesn't overheat.