Economists were surprised recently when the rate of productivity improvement slowed. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, observed that despite increased spending on technology—especially information technology—the U.S. economy is not experiencing expected productivity gains.

I'm not at all surprised. Information technology alone does not deliver much in productivity improvement. Just installing new technologies without accompanying work change won't do much for a business. My guess is that companies are not paying enough attention to process and people change.

The rate of productivity improvement may also be slowing because the easy benefits—the low-hanging fruit—from information technology have been harvested. Companies have automated their financial systems, optimized their supply chains, and launched their corporate websites. Now more challenge and real opportunity lie ahead.

Why is this important to companies—and not just economists? Today, companies spend more capital on IT infrastructures than they do on buildings. IT is the biggest line item on most corporate capital budgets. This trend is likely to continue as companies invest to make their server environments more efficient and productive through virtualization, increase their storage capacity to handle even more information, and build wireless environments to connect with the consumer world. Managers should be concerned about getting real business value out of this spend, for customers as well as for shareholders.

I'm convinced that, up to now, we have only moderately improved the productivity of most enterprises. Imagine an IT department that could bring up a major applications package in days rather than months while not expanding its server capacity; imagine an airline that could provide current and accurate information on the status of your flight over your PDA; imagine a hospital running effectively and efficiently with digitized patient information and clinical systems integrated with its billing and reimbursement processes. What technology now enables is well ahead of where most business processes stand.

So for every new technology initiative, ask yourself—and your partners—these hard questions:

1) What operational and process changes will be made?

As IT departments operationalize new technologies, they must ask this question of themselves. Do we have the processes in place, for example, to evaluate what applications might share a virtualized server? Are processes in place to recover if a single server with multiple applications is down? Do we have the skills to manage a new technology environment? If the answer isn't "yes" to all of these questions, trouble lies ahead.

Turning to the business, are people in the line ready to change their work to benefit from new technologies and applications? I continue to be amazed, for example, at how little preparation is being done as major hospitals install large systems to digitize health care records. The processes and work of clinicians will change dramatically, but this reality seems to be an afterthought, overrun by the huge effort to install the technology.

2) What are we going to do about the old processes?

When a technology doesn't deliver value, it's sometimes because new and old processes are operating at the same time, placing a greater burden on people and making them less efficient. So make sure you get rid of some old work as you turn on new technologies and processes.

3) Are we planning to add enough high touch?

There is a naive belief that the more sophisticated an information technology, the more it will run and fix itself. I'm only partially amused by the senseless instructions and advice that show up on a screen to help me muddle through a new application. In the early days of new technologies, both implementers and users need help and human intervention.

Make sure there's a solid core of people—whether internal or external—who understand the new technology and can accelerate knowledge transfer and time-to-adoption. It's penny-wise and pound-foolish to spend millions on hardware, software, and consulting services and then skimp on the training and support your people need to become proficient in using the new technology to achieve your business goals.

4) Are we investing in the right area of the business?

This question is, of course, predicated on your knowing what business benefits you expect from new technologies. My advice is to go for high-return, high-value opportunities first. Apply technology to the processes that sell, make, and deliver your products or services. You can direct new technologies to supporting processes—like HR or finance—but real value gets delivered at the heart of your business. This may seem risky, but it's what you must eventually do.

This is an age of technology renewal. But it must also be a time of people and process renewal.

Jim Champy is chairman of Perot Systems' consulting practice and the best-selling author of several books on business leadership and performance, including Reengineering the Corporation.