The guide, according to BMC corporate strategist, Peter Armstrong, is based on the findings of a 2004 study that highlights a serious misalignment between the objectives of the board, and requirement of the IT function in selected countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and was created in consultation with business leader and author, David Taylor.
The pan-EMEA survey, incorporating the views of 500 IT directors, reveals that 70 percent of respondents attribute the misalignment between business and IT strategies to poor communication.
'10bn losses
It also revealed that South Africa is the third least aligned country in EMEA, with 56 percent of SA IT directors believing that their business and IT strategies are not aligned, and a massive 62 percent of them questioning reported losses of between '50,000 (US$59,060) and '10 billion as a direct result of IT failures.
Armstrong says: "What we aim to do with this guide is to get CIOs to understand what IT can do for the business." He notes that more CIOs are appointed from the business side of the industry, and not as previously, from the IT side, which in effect leaves them not knowing the abilities of the IT department and possibilities it can offer.
"Business needs to close the communication gap and the CIO is the key to do that," Armstrong says. He believes that this management guide will help local companies increase their productivity and service to customers, and have IT departments become profit centers instead of cost centers - decreasing the moneys lost on failed IT projects.
Taylor actively encourages CIOs to take responsibility for the communication breakdown and presents a number of tactics to actively resolve the issue.
He notes that to align business and IT strategies, businesses should ensure that IT has a real, measurable business value, and understand how the CEO will measure it.
Four positives
In the guide Taylor also says that CEOs can give CIOs some advice. He presents four positives that CEOs want from IT leaders. These include: focusing on what technology does, and not what it is; that IT should stop differentiating itself from the rest of the business - IT is the business; IT must become a profit center not a cost center; and IT must take ownership and market itself, because it is now visible to customers.
Alongside the positives the CEO cites negatives that the CIO should avoid. These include that CIOs should not ask for higher budgets unless they can prove real, measurable business value; IT projects must deliver faster and be more flexible, and lastly, 'Do not embarrass me or any of my colleagues about our lack of knowledge of technology'.
Further tactics that Taylor includes relate to performance and perception. He says the perceived performance of IT within the organization is not decided by what the department does, but by what colleagues think the department does. Changing perception is the key to aligning IT and the rest of the business.
Taylor notes that the reason why CIOs and CEOs have a mismatch in communication is because they do not think the same way. CIOs, he says, set service level agreements to present a logical interpretation of meeting performance targets, but that this kind of measure delivers no value to the CEO.
The guide also touches on the subjects of culture and leadership, introducing hidden account management, neuro-linguistic programming, integrating business culture and good old-fashioned internal customer service delivery.
Says Armstrong: "The communication gap between CIO and CEO is symptomatic of a wider cultural communication issue, which must be addressed before the business can effectively align its IT resources with business objectives and achieve the business service management vision. We commissioned this management guide to enable CIOs across EMEA to take control, not through technology per se, but through delivering measurable results against business strategy which is enabled by technology."
Taylor adds: "The fundamental communication issue in the IT industry is the cultural belief that IT is a department within a business. In fact, technology is the business, and those who understand technology must take the initiative to bring about a change in perception, so that IT is viewed as the strategy, rather than the tactic for achieving business objectives."