Reccan - IT Management - IT Governance - Best Practise Guidelines

IT is an integral part of a corporate drive for productivity and growth because so many aspects of business activity depend on IT capability for efficiency and competitive advantage.

Research has established that organisations can achieve a 20% higher return on assets with good IT governance. This is because uncoordinated IT commitments will result in higher costs, damage to productivity and may inhibit the development of integrated business processes or allow business risks to be overlooked.

Good IT governance is concerned with effective communication, efficient decision structures and clear measurable business focused IT objectives. These mechanisms build a commitment to business/IT alignment and IT service management that transcends internal and external organisational boundaries.

IT governance provides the discipline and structure for improvements in the business exploitation of IT and for improvements in the management of IT related risks.

IT governance is an established and proven approach to providing the organisational commitment, effective management processes and performance monitoring required to meet business IT objectives and control IT risk.

IT Governance directly contributes to all areas of business IT provision and IT risk control by:

Coordinating business and IT management commitments.
Improving IT investment decisions and IT exploitation.
Providing the management structure and processes for risk and control required for legal and regulatory compliance.
Maintaining a proactive performance management culture within the IT function.
Providing the structure and processes for coordinating IT partners’ objectives, contracts and performance targets for outsourcing.
Delivering a structured approach to managing IT responsibility, opportunities, risks and performance.

Effective IT governance really does deliver a higher return on assets at the business level. Please use the resources on this site to help you consider what aspects of IT governance are currently inhibiting the success of your organisation.