SEO Is Something IT Can Handle
There seems to be a perception that SEO requires some technical expertise, and since it is technical, IT can just do the work. While there is a technical component to SEO, it requires way more than just technical chops, so I’d think long and hard before handing an entire project to IT or a web designer. Though you may need some of those individuals to assist you during the course of optimizing your website, it’s far from ideal to just give SEO duties to IT and expect best practices to be adhered to.
While many IT professionals are adept in many technical areas -- for instance, making sure your website is crawlable and setting up redirects and XML sitemap files -- just remember that many IT personnel also work on things like setting up printers, which is … well ... a different skill set than what’s needed to effectively run an SEO strategy.