Nah
I don't go to work with a chip on my shoulder. It's just that IT, as a business unit, is young and unstable. A few years back, the IT guys had businesses over a barrel, and they took advantage of that. Now, the pendulum is swinging the other direction. This too shall pass, until we find ourselves in an equilibrium, like the more mature departments.
Everyone knows what to expect when you outsource payroll. That experience hasn't been worked out yet with IT. It seems like a commodity, and to an extent it is. Most companies could put their services in The Cloud and be fine for quite a while. Eventually, though, someone would want something that isn't in the service offering. They'll get tired of being told "we don't offer that", and won't like to hear that they're stuck on a platform with no migration path. (Vendor lock-in is a real bear.) There's a romantic notion of all the capital costs and labor going away, but having the same amenities they're used to. I don't think that's reality.
Anyway, I don't resent HR, Accounting, Legal, etc., for their established places. I do see that we (IT) have more of a focus on customer service -- and that's because we have to. As an industry, we've got our PR face on. We played our power card, and now we're on probation.
For the record, if you're thinking I'm whining about handling an exec's personal matters, I really don't mind. It's their company, and they're the reason I get a paycheck. Heck, from time to time, we do that for users, too. My point there was that there's a level of personal service when you have your own in-house department that you won't get when you outsource. And I think that will be missed.
