1/29/2007
Helping the IT helpers
AUCKLAND businessman Shaun Blackmore qualifies as a bona fide tech geek: he started writing software aged 10 for the Atari computer his parents bought for $1500 from Farmers in the early 1980s. The IT consultant prefers the term ‘‘enthusiastic IT professional’’, but however you describe him, Blackmore certainly knows his IDM from his SDM, and his SO-DIMMs from his TWAINs.
His company, Activate Technologies,writes and sells self-provisioning software — in Blackmore’s words, ‘‘it allows business users to request things online that they’d usually have to go to the IT helpdesk for’’. The IT department of a big organization has many demands including ensuring new users have access to the right files and programs, and that current users’ access is kept up to date, while also dealing with day-to-day running of IT systems.
Blackmore’s product can automate much of that, and potentially save the company money by freeing up the helpdesk for other tasks. He is surprised at how common what he terms ‘‘uncontrolled’’ local corporate IT environments are. ‘‘You ring the IT helpdesk because you want to change a password, or because you can’t access something. How do they verify you are who you say you are? Very often they don’t. You could change the CIO’s password without them knowing.’’ Many companies allow shared log-ins when they can’t organise or authorise a log-in for a new user fast enough, which raises security issues. Blackmore estimates each helpdesk call costs an organisation between $20 and $30, and claims companies that buy Activate software ‘‘generally see a return on investment in less than a year’’. At one large local organisation it took 10 days to set up new staff members with the information they needed to access the computer system, he recalls.
Activate has a host of big local customers: the Ministry of Defence, the Waikato District Health Board, Quotable Value, Carter Holt Harvey. He has lined up the product’s first Australian reseller, as well as a direct buyer from a US-based company. Dealing with reseller’s in the US is imperative, because the country is too big to take on directly.
While technology is ever-changing, he reckons the day-to-day IT business in New Zealand hasn’t altered much over the past decade.
‘‘IT departments in large organizations have always been talking about aligning with business but get so bogged down in dealing with the day to day stuff that improvements don’t happen.’’
Christine Nikiel is The Business’ Auckland based writer.
As reported in the New Zealand Herald, Business Magazine 29th January 2007