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By David F. Carr
www.forbes.com
05.24.10, 06:00 AM EDT
Don't get between Jay Roy and his data. For an information technology person, that's
a good way to get fired.
Roy is CEO of AWPRx, a Florida company that provides pharmacy benefits management
services in workers' compensation cases. It's a 25-person firm with about $15
million in revenue, and it runs on data. Roy knows he needs to have good IT people
on staff to keep the business humming smoothly. But he's had some bad experiences
with the sort of IT people who give the field a bad name. He's particularly ornery
about the types that guarantee themselves job security by creating systems so
complex only they can understand them. Then, once the software is created, they
spend all their energy fighting efforts to simplify and streamline those systems,
Roy says.
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So what did Roy do? "I fired every last one of them." He has since hired
replacements, but with the clear understanding that their job is to support the
business rather than their build their own technological empires.
Roy's approach to IT shows the extent to which a new breed of technologies are
giving more power to managers, sometimes at the expense of the programmers who once
ruled the roost. Mark Smith, CEO of the IT research firm Ventana Research, says new
tools that allow application assembly and configuration without coding make it
possible for business people with only a modicum of technical knowledge to take
direct control of their IT systems.
"Probably 80% of business applications are pretty straightforward, and you really
shouldn't be hiring Java developers just to move around data," Smith says.
One way to avoid doing that is to take advantage of new hosted applications, like
Salesforce.com ( CRM - news - people ) or Zoho, for sales and customer service.
These programs put a lot of emphasis on easy-to-use tools for customizing forms and
databases. So although it's possible to do some more heavy-duty programming to
customize the software, often it's not necessary.
Still, AWPRx's business is complex, requiring the automated exchange of data with
other applications and with other businesses, such as insurance companies and drug
companies. That goes beyond what the likes of Salesforce can do on its own.
AWPRx has been able to manage a lot of the additional integration and customization
with software from Jitterbit. That software is itself offered as a cloud service,
for integrating different cloud applications with one another, or integrating cloud
applications with a company's internal systems.
Roy says much of the data integration work is being done by one of his partners, a
clinical pharmacist who is not a programmer but who understands the business very
well.
Sometimes "civilians" without computer experience have advantages over seasoned tech
workers. For example, Roy said his old IT workers had a bad habit of assigning
obscure code names to database tables and columns. Changing them to clear,
descriptive names required a significant investment of time. "It's been hell, but
it's been worth it," Roy says.
The real issue is that some software programmers have a tendency to solve problems
by writing code, even when all or most of the business requirements could be met
with off-the-shelf software products. Then again, it's also possible to make the
opposite mistake, creating a Rube Goldberg kludge of packaged software that doesn't
quite add up to a coherent system.
So if you really have unique requirements, or you do not believe any of the standard
software for your business addresses them properly, go ahead and write your own
code. But if your technology staff is building an empire of servers and databases
for no good reason, maybe you need to show them who is boss.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/22/awprx-salesforce-zoho-technology-software.html?boxes=techchannellighttop
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