IT Consulting - Why are we giving it away?

My 25th anniversary as an IT consultant is rapidly approaching - and with it, comes a myriad of mixed emotions; satisfaction? Maybe a little. Frustration? Perhaps. Futility? A bit. Backaches from too many 'desk crawls'? Certainly.

I've seen this industry go from the first baby steps in the late 80's, when Novell was the 'defacto' choice for small businesses (and large), where Microsoft's only network offering was Windows for Workgroups, where companies such as Banyan Vines had superior product offerings and directory services before they were even a twinkle in the industry's eye (try managing a 50,000 user network these days without a directory service, and you will see what Banyan meant for us poor network admins in the early 90's).

These days, the industry is all about 'consolidation', 'virtualization', and 'outsourcing'. Despite the ever-increasing complexity of today's networks, consultants are generally earning (and their company's charging) exactly the same rates for service that they charged ten years ago - or less.

Why?

Ask this question to ten different consultants, and you will probably get ten different answers. The most common, of course, is that 'pressure' from overseas markets have caused rates to stay flat, or even to decrease. Others range from 'economic woes', to 'users accessing their offices remotely', to 'increased computer knowledge by in-house resources', to 'ease of use for networks', to 'managed services and hosting eating into margins.'

While I will address some of these in a future post, my own thoughts lie in a different direction. The main reason I believe that we, IT professionals and outsourcers, are still earning the same wages as we have for the past 20 years, is that

a> we have failed to make C suite businessmen see their network infrastructure as anything more than 'the plumbing' - something that is ignored, is expected to always work, and is only noticed when it doesn't

b> Lousy business practices and lousy businessman in our industry - too often, we 'give it away.'. You don't see lawyers or financial professionals doing this, but you see it ALL THE TIME in our industry - geek-types who love to 'tinker' and learn things, and don't charge for their time or expertise. This is an industry wide problem, and has eroded everyone's earning potential because of it.

c> inability to really do comprehensive *process* analysis of IT clients and help them apply technology to fundamentally change the way they do business. Oh sure, I see some of that, but in general most network consultants I talk to are only interested in upgrading servers, getting faster pc's, adding ram, upgrading OS', etc. Nothing that will fundamentally change the way the companies are using technology - just more of the same 'faster, better, newer' mentality.

I've seen very few firms in the northeast area of the country - particularly New York /New Jersey /Connecticut that do a complete job of IT outsourcing. There are plenty that can fix your network - there are very few that take a *complete* view of your technology, and look hard at your business processes. One of the best, The LCO Group (http://www.thelcogroup.com) was referred to me a few years ago, and I've done some consulting work for them. Progent (http://www.prgent.com) was also impressive. But even these firms have been affected by the overcrowded IT market, and erosion of profits that are affecting the entire industry.

And we have no one to blame but ourselves ...