Years ago in graduate school, one of my classmates asked why most of the Accounting business examples we studied seemed to focus on companies in trouble. The professor replied – “When business is good management may feel there is no need to focus on the details. When things are bad everyone is interested in the details.”
Today’s Ekalore post focuses on Sales and Marketing IT spend. Now that companies are under stress from the current crisis, it’s time to pay attention to the detail. Sales and Marketing control a large chunk of IT spend in most big enterprises. Even in small enterprises, the portion of spending will surprise even management. Like plants and engineering, sales and marketing IT roles and functions are not well-defined, and, in most cases, good process is absent.
Here are four specific issues in Sales and Marketing IT:
1. Administrator logins for cloud and on-web services aren’t backed up or shared (including tokens, authorizing email addresses, and passwords).
2. User seat controls (and costs) aren’t controlled tightly as reductions in the workforce proceed.
3. Payment controls (corporate credit cards or pay accounts) aren’t handled in the same controls.
4. Contracts and usage agreements aren’t easily accessed by succeeding managers (who may not know what they’re paying for in subscriptions).
Check back tomorrow to see four more issues that Sales and Marketing IT: Face
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