DCG Newsletter October 2009: Finding ITs Business Value

Finding IT's Business Value- so what?

It is easy to talk about aligning IT or creating greater IT value. The truth is, it is difficult to define, harder to measure and ultimately to actually create.

But so what? Many companies are quite successful accepting the status quo spending budget dollars on categories of stuff (hardware, software, networks, tools, etc) without measuring the worth to the business.

In a recent Forrester survey*, only 15 percent of IT leaders declared themselves to be fully aligned with the business.

While that number may be alarming to some, it confirms that most don't really care about IT-business alignment, it is just not a problem.

Nearly 80 percent of the 600 business executives who responded to Forrester's Q3 2008 North American Business Online Survey ranked IT "somewhat" to "critically" important for key business activities, such as lowering the company's operating costs, improving workforce productivity, and acquiring and retaining new customers. But less than half these business leaders saw IT as doing "well" to "excellent" in supporting those needs.

So which half are you in? If your IT is doing well or excellent, your frustrations and challenges are minimal, your competition is standing still and the status quo is just fine, then either you are measuring IT value and IT is well aligned to your business or it simply does not matter in your culture.

However, if you are in the other half, with an impending sense of being passed in the marketplace, frustrated with delivery issues (cost, quality, time) and always being challenged to "add value" to the business; you may want to consider brushing up on the topic.

A good resource is the book, The Business Value of IT, written by DCG President Mike Harris, VP of Knowledge Solutions Services, David Herron, and Senior Consultant, Stasia Iwanicki. This tome identifies the organizational and cultural obstacles you need to define and measure value and most importantly change the culture.

If your needs to define and measure value are more urgent, please e-mail us at info@davidconsultinggroup.com for a 10-15 min discussion on whether an IT Value Change initiative makes sense for your business. Statistically speaking, it probably does not, but we would be glad to discuss it with you.

*excerpted from CIO Insight issue 8-28-09, Article By Bob Cameron