IT, business alignment gaining importance

09.03.2007
Measuring and demonstrating the real business value of IT is becoming more important than ever for chief information officers, according to U.K. IT business management (ITBM) services provider Touchpaper.

In an interview with Computerworld Philippines, Touchpaper chief executive officer Graham Ridgway cited a 2006 study by Gartner which says that the priorities of CIOs are shifting. 'In 2004, we saw CIOs prioritize saving the company money and consolidating -- doing more with less. In 2005, focus moved to delivering projects that enable business growth. Today, what's molding the IT department are business goals -- understanding how the business works and translating that into IT projects,' he said.

The CEO noted, however, that a common challenge among IT departments is establishing a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) -- a set of goals and challenges, 'CIOs aren't able to use enough KPIs to justify what they do.' This was why the ITBM Maturity Model was developed, he said. Citing a Touchpaper study of 100 CIOs in U.K., Ridgway shared that only 40 percent of U.K. enterprises currently measure IT's contribution to business success with KPIs. The survey concluded that organizations today are still failing to set formal and measurable goals, which severely impacts their ability to optimize their IT infrastructure.