From IT Governance to Enterprise Governance of IT: a Journey for creating Business Value out of IT
Abstract
IT governance is one of those concepts that suddenly
emerged and became an important issue in IT. In academic and
professional literature, articles mentioningIT governance in the title
began to emerge during the late 1990s. In the context of the leading
academic HICSS conference, it was defined as the organizational capacity
exercised by the board, executive management and IT management, to
control the formulation and implementation of IT strategy and in this
way ensure the fusion of business and IT. After the emergence of the IT
governance concepts, the notion received a lot of attention. However,
due to the focus on "IT" in the naming, the IT governance discussion
mainly remained a discussion within IT. Many IT governance
implementations are still mainly an issue "within IT", while one would
expect that the business would and should take a leading role here as
well. It is clear that business value from IT investments cannot only be
realized through its use of IT capabilities. For example, there will be
no business value created when IT delivers a new customer relationship
management (CRM) application on time, on budget, and to specification if
the business has not made the necessary changes to the business model,
business processes, organizational structures, people competencies, and
the reward system required to effectively integrate the new IT system
into its business operations. IT-enabled investments should therefore
always be treated as business programs, composed of a collection of
business and IT projects delivering all the capabilities required to
create and sustain business value. This discussion clarifies the need
for the business to take ownership of, and be accountable for, governing
the use of IT in creating value from IT-enabled business investments. It
also implies a crucial shift in the minds of the business and IT, moving
away from managing IT as a "cost" toward managing IT as an "asset" to
create business value. Acknowledging the prime accountability of the
business in value creation initiated a shift in the definition of IT
governance, focusing on the business involvement, toward "enterprise
governance of IT" (instead of IT governance).
Domains
Digital Libraries [cs.DL]Origin | Files produced by the author(s) |
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