Kieran Cooper says that when it comes to IT, proper planning can prevent disasters and, crucially, save money.
The dreaded words ?IT strategy? evoke a mixture of emotions in those that hear them ? terror among finance managers who worry that it will mean having to spend lots of money; boredom among chief executives who can?t really see why you need a strategy for something that ought to be simple; and delight among IT consultants, whose eyes light up at the prospect of a nice stream of ongoing work.
From my experience, very few arts organisations (and, indeed, very few small and medium-size commercial companies) can actually put their hands on their hearts and say that their IT systems have been developed strategically. What is much more likely is that decisions have been taken in haste ? often under pressure because of some catastrophic failure of existing equipment ? and that spending has been piecemeal, dependent only on whether money happened to be available at the time. While fully understanding that circumstances change over time and that it is impossible to make long-term predictions about precisely what IT will be needed in the future, I do believe that organisations will ultimately save themselves time, money and heartache by spending a small amount of effort agreeing a framework against which all subsequent decisions can be assessed.
Big decisions
These discussions should happen at board level within organisations. For most arts companies, IT is absolutely critical to the operation of the business ? if the box office system goes down then bookings can?t be taken, and a few crucial days without a functioning phone or email system could cripple a festival ? and directors should take as much care to avoid this happening as they would to prevent accounting fraud or health and safety breaches. Funders have a role to play in making sure their clients address this issue ? I?ve seen so much public money wasted by arts organisations through poor decisions and I doubt their funders knew or understood why this was.
There are five key elements that are crucial for every organisation to consider:
? Making a commitment to service and replace software regularly
? Maintaining proper structures for support
? Ensuring the legality of all organisational software
? Planning for disasters, and
? Ongoing staff training.
Renewal and replacement
For most arts organisations, the availability of capital money for the purchase of IT hardware or software has been dependent on grants and funding schemes. This has only got worse since the introduction of the National Lottery, as organisations have been able to access huge funds but have then not made any provision in their ongoing revenue budget to replace or renew systems over time. This is now starting to bite back as organisations struggle with systems that are out of date and are no longer supported by their original suppliers. Clearly the fact that the rate of technological change has accelerated so dramatically over the past few years has presented many problems. Computer operating systems that are more than five years old are now regarded as ridiculously antiquated ? and, indeed, Microsoft have stopped offering support for Windows 98 and NT Server, which were standard products in 2000. Having said that, the cost of hardware and software has continued to fall ? a complete new desktop computer and screen now costs about the same as you would have paid for a basic inkjet printer ten years ago.
My recommendation is that organisations should take the decision to replace a quarter of their workstation computers every year, and to replace their servers every four years. When upgrading the workstations, users should also be upgraded to the latest version of office software and operating system (with the caveat that a new version should have been released for at least a year before it is adopted). For a middle-sized organisation with ten employees, this should mean spending or setting aside about £2,000 a year from the revenue budget (but not including any provision for box office, fundraising or accounting systems). Another advantage of a regular programme of renewal of hardware is that organisations should have to spend less on supporting old machines, for which parts are often no longer available. However, even with brand-new kit, companies should still be ensuring that they have arrangements in place to support the system and users.
Getting legal
Boards of arts organisations should be making policy decisions to insist that all the software used is correctly licensed, and funders should be making this a requirement of support. We wouldn?t expect organisations to be allowed not to pay their VAT or arrange public entertainment licences, but too many people are still using pirated versions of software. Whatever we think of software companies, there really isn?t any excuse for breaking the law.
At this point, it?s worth mentioning the discount software purchase scheme that is available to members of the National Campaign for Voluntary Organisations. The reduction in price makes it perfectly feasible for every company that is eligible to join (essentially all charities and voluntary bodies) to buy up-to-date and legal versions of software. See http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk for full details of membership. I know of one organisation that would have saved over £5,000 through using the scheme ? and I can?t for the life of me understand why everyone isn?t doing the same.
In the event of disaster
Every organisation needs a plan for how it will avoid problems caused by the failure of systems, or by outside factors such as power cuts or floods. A small amount of time spent making and then testing plans could potentially save companies a fortune if disaster were ever to strike. Finally, even the friendliest companies will inevitably have some turnover of staff over time, and there are also bound to be occasions when staff need to increase their knowledge or investigate how to do things differently. Organisations should be making a stated commitment to keeping employees? knowledge up to date, and part of the training budget needs to be dedicated to IT. There are many schemes providing free or subsidised training these days that can generally be accessed though the local Business Link.
Even if the terror or boredom I described can?t be completely avoided, spending time considering the issues can go a long way to reduce the problems ? and that should ultimately mean that managers and boards can then devote energy to the things that really matter.
Kieran Cooper is a Director of the arts management consultancy Catalyst Arts.
t: 01223 562871;
e: kieran@catalystarts.com;
w: http://www.catalystarts.com