Everything that an organisation procures in technology terms has an impact on something else. This means that it is crucial to think through the potential ramifications before even considering a new purchase.

While such statements may seem like common sense to the average business executive, they are worth reiterating because we appear to be on the verge of yet another IT spending boom, which is inevitably followed by a bust.

The first boom, if you remember, was sparked by the panic leading up to the Year 2000 due to fears that the world would grind to a halt as it was hit by the ‘Millennium Bug’. It seemed this period of genuine trepidation also became an excuse for many IT departments to introduce projects of varying value by the backdoor, which added to the already large sums of money being spent.

This situation was then compounded by the dot com boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s where many organisations jumped indiscriminately onto the Internet bandwagon, spending huge amounts on poorly thought-through online strategies, a lot of which evaporated when the South Sea bubble burst.

The inevitable backlash resulted in brutal cuts in expenditure, however, which were equally unhealthy and unbalanced in nature. And of course, relations between IT and the board suffered as management, in many cases, was unable to see what return it had received on its investment and resented what it saw as a beanfeast that had generated little in business value terms.

But it seems that we may already be on the lower reaches of an upward curve again. As the external environment becomes ever-more competitive, not least as organisations attempt to tackle the challenges presented by an increasingly globalised economy, they are again turning to IT for answers.

Enough time has now gone by to forget some of the pain of the past and if nothing else has worked, it can be beguiling to see IT as some kind of fix-all. Moreover, the latest IT industry hype-fest is also starting to make its mark.

For instance, convergence between computer systems and telephony with technologies such as Voice-over-IP is widely being touted as an indispensable way of producing significant cost savings and improving services. Mobile offerings are likewise being portrayed as the new must-have to boost worker productivity and enable progressive staffing policies such as flexible and home-working, which, in turn, are being viewed as a means of reducing organisations’ carbon footprint.

And all of this can be true and indeed, in some instances, is. But the issue still remains that it is simply not enough to buy point solutions to a problem, ram them in and expect the business to be transformed.

IT is and can only ever be a tool to automate and support underlying business processes and it should only ever be introduced after the implications of that introduction have been explored and fully understood within the context of a carefully reasoned strategy. Companies should also, of course, be wary of purchasing technology for technology’s sake, just because it’s considered hot.

One professional services company that I know, for example, decided that it wanted to introduce Blackberrys to keep up with the Jones’ and went out and bought some for various members of staff and management. It was then very disappointed when they didn’t seem to work properly.

Unfortunately the organisation in question had not purchased the server and other backend infrastructure required to make the devices operational. Implementing the necessary equipment and providing the requisite training inevitably saw the initial cost of the initiative rise, but careful consideration of the implications and return on investment has since made the initiative a valued one.

An example of a project that was successful from the outset, however, was the introduction of a computer-aided design (CAD) system at well known firm of property & construction consultants to enable personnel to view all of its architectural drawings and share information, no matter where they were located.

While CAD applications are traditionally used by people like engineers to design new products, this was the first time that they had been deployed in this innovative fashion, which just goes to show that it is not the technology itself that is important, but the way in which it is applied.

The company needed to think through what its business requirements were, what the risk factors and ramifications on both business processes and other IT systems would be and what benefits they could realistically achieve - all of which are important steps before implementing any system can even be considered.

This is not least because when organisations buy technology, they tend to do so for two reasons – to either save money or make money. As a result, working out the return on investment and being able to measure results in before and after terms are crucial.

But other important issues to be pondered in today’s increasingly complex world are, firstly, whether the IT systems that organisations purchase are capable of growing with the business rather than having only a limited shelf-life, and secondly, how their lifecycle is to be managed.

With the emergence of a heightened ‘green’ awareness and legislation such as the European Commission’s Waste and Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations, gone are the days when companies could simply buy equipment and then dump it in landfill when it reached the end of its life.

Now they have a duty of care to store, collect, recycle or dispose of WEEE separately from other waste as well as retain proof that a waste management company treated and disposed of it in an environmentally sound way.

Concepts such as these feed into the very important notion that every action has a reaction, and that the reaction simply has to be thought through. But when thinking it through, it is also very important to cast an objective but informed eye over the situation, a process that can be helped by a trusted partner.

In a nutshell, what this all boils down to is being able to look at the big picture and find a cost-effective way to reach a desired destination - informed decision-making is the key.