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Meet the Newest Profit Center to Join the Enterprise: The IT Department

No Longer Just a Cost Center, IT Must Think Long-Term and Leave a New Legacy of ROI
Tim Flower

For decades IT departments have been regarded as "cost centers" — departments and entire divisions made up of necessary expenses which don't produce any measurable profit but instead help companies avoid losses by ensuring uptime, addressing end-user concerns and implementing C-suite approved technologies. As noted by the Harvard Business Review (HBR), however, this attitude is changing: Companies now recognize the potential of IT departments to drive total ROI and boost the bottom line.

To live up to this new role, however, IT must lose the short-term mindset, which, to be fair, has often been necessitated by one-off and sudden-impact issues. IT managers must adopt a long-term strategy in order to create new revenue, improve profitability, future-proof the corporate technology landscape and leave an ROI legacy.

Changing Conversation

According to a recent Forrester report, companies are coming around to a new way of thinking about IT, especially as applied to end-user experience management. Businesses now recognize the need to obtain ground-floor data about how end-users interact with IT systems "in the wild" instead of relying on pre-designed stress tests or waiting for front-line staff to submit IT tickets. The former method puts tech pros in a reactive rather than proactive position and encourages end-users to seek out their own answers, bypassing IT.

The Forrester data tells the tale: While 28 percent of companies put improved end-user productivity among their top-five goals, cutting the cost of end-user support was similarly prioritized. Leading their priorities was cutting the total cost of end-user operations using active monitoring tools. While not a revenue generator in isolation, this priority speaks to the emerging long view of IT departments: If real-time monitoring tools can reduce the costs of end-user operations by quickly addressing issues and determining root causes, this money can be re-invested into more "profitable" areas of IT such as deep-data analytics or social media tools.

Getting SaaSy

Another key driver of the emerging long-term view is the huge Software-as-a-Service market. As noted by WhaTech, the SaaS market is headed for a $170 billion-dollar value by 2025 as companies leverage the power of off-premise software. But it's not the only game in town — according to Forrester, companies must now bridge cloud-native, SaaS and packaged applications, all of which run on different platforms and may not play nicely together. The result? Thirty-six percent of companies surveyed by Forrester have adopted multiple clouds to ensure their SaaS stable can coexist with cloud-native offerings and in-house applications.

While this might seem short-sighted on the surface, it's a testament to the necessary future of IT: As cloud becomes ubiquitous, it only makes sense for companies to adopt the ideal combination of on-site, public and private clouds to cover all the bases. In effect, this doesn't limit IT potential but rather expands it, giving departments the room and resources they need to develop profitable initiatives rather than remaining locked in by limited network compatibility and outdated views of IT as a cost-center.

The role of IT is making a transition from a cost center that is simply chasing problems, to a profit center that is thinking long-term to implement strategic initiatives that leave a legacy of ROI. In doing so, IT needs to implement innovative tools and technologies, and work in collaboration enterprise-wide to better understand the needs and challenges of end-users to ensure a better business outcome.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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Meet the Newest Profit Center to Join the Enterprise: The IT Department

No Longer Just a Cost Center, IT Must Think Long-Term and Leave a New Legacy of ROI
Tim Flower

For decades IT departments have been regarded as "cost centers" — departments and entire divisions made up of necessary expenses which don't produce any measurable profit but instead help companies avoid losses by ensuring uptime, addressing end-user concerns and implementing C-suite approved technologies. As noted by the Harvard Business Review (HBR), however, this attitude is changing: Companies now recognize the potential of IT departments to drive total ROI and boost the bottom line.

To live up to this new role, however, IT must lose the short-term mindset, which, to be fair, has often been necessitated by one-off and sudden-impact issues. IT managers must adopt a long-term strategy in order to create new revenue, improve profitability, future-proof the corporate technology landscape and leave an ROI legacy.

Changing Conversation

According to a recent Forrester report, companies are coming around to a new way of thinking about IT, especially as applied to end-user experience management. Businesses now recognize the need to obtain ground-floor data about how end-users interact with IT systems "in the wild" instead of relying on pre-designed stress tests or waiting for front-line staff to submit IT tickets. The former method puts tech pros in a reactive rather than proactive position and encourages end-users to seek out their own answers, bypassing IT.

The Forrester data tells the tale: While 28 percent of companies put improved end-user productivity among their top-five goals, cutting the cost of end-user support was similarly prioritized. Leading their priorities was cutting the total cost of end-user operations using active monitoring tools. While not a revenue generator in isolation, this priority speaks to the emerging long view of IT departments: If real-time monitoring tools can reduce the costs of end-user operations by quickly addressing issues and determining root causes, this money can be re-invested into more "profitable" areas of IT such as deep-data analytics or social media tools.

Getting SaaSy

Another key driver of the emerging long-term view is the huge Software-as-a-Service market. As noted by WhaTech, the SaaS market is headed for a $170 billion-dollar value by 2025 as companies leverage the power of off-premise software. But it's not the only game in town — according to Forrester, companies must now bridge cloud-native, SaaS and packaged applications, all of which run on different platforms and may not play nicely together. The result? Thirty-six percent of companies surveyed by Forrester have adopted multiple clouds to ensure their SaaS stable can coexist with cloud-native offerings and in-house applications.

While this might seem short-sighted on the surface, it's a testament to the necessary future of IT: As cloud becomes ubiquitous, it only makes sense for companies to adopt the ideal combination of on-site, public and private clouds to cover all the bases. In effect, this doesn't limit IT potential but rather expands it, giving departments the room and resources they need to develop profitable initiatives rather than remaining locked in by limited network compatibility and outdated views of IT as a cost-center.

The role of IT is making a transition from a cost center that is simply chasing problems, to a profit center that is thinking long-term to implement strategic initiatives that leave a legacy of ROI. In doing so, IT needs to implement innovative tools and technologies, and work in collaboration enterprise-wide to better understand the needs and challenges of end-users to ensure a better business outcome.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...