IT takes the blame for fear of change

There's a good reason why senior executives love IT - it's so easy to blame when things go wrong.

For weeks, criticism of Sainsbury's business performance focused on problems with computer systems believed to have caused stock shortages. It was a convenient excuse. Last week, the company's outgoing IT director Maggie Miller decided she had had enough, and defended herself and her team in Computing. Internally, it seems there were apologies that IT had been misrepresented, but the retailer was happy to let the perception continue in public.

The NHS was also criticised last week following a National Audit Office report warning of problems with the 'Choose and Book' e-booking system. Although health secretary John Reid rightly stood up for the technology, the public perception was made that the government was failing on another expensive computer system.

In both cases, the true problems are the same. At Sainsbury's, new working practices in the supply chain led to inaccurate stock recording. In the NHS, GPs don't like being dictated to from Whitehall, and are hardly rushing to alter the way they work. The root cause is the difficulty of changing a well-embedded culture and overcoming most people's natural resistance to change.

The days of IT simply automating administrative tasks are long gone. Today, strategic use of technology means doing things differently - a management challenge that perhaps many executives are less well-prepared to tackle.

There are no quick fixes - in the NHS, changing culture is the management equivalent of steering an oil tanker. The situation is also a legacy of years of misunderstanding and poor communication between business and IT in many organisations.

But it is down to IT directors to lead a change in perceptions, and to educate business leaders and users in the importance of integrating their approaches to technology and cultural change. If not, computers will continue to be an easy scapegoat.

It's going to be a tough job - but IT is the one to do it.