IT still has a long way to go before boards realise its
true business value, according to IT business management
providerTouchpaper.
Their survey of 100 CIOs showed that 82% think an inability to
convince the board of IT's value means department budgets and
reputations are suffering.
And 71% think this inability to show business value stops them
from achieving real power in the boardroom.
The problem is that not enough departments measure their
business value, with only 47% using
key performance indicators to measure how IT supports strategic
business objectives. Plus, 96% of respondents either have no
systems in place to measure the performance of the IT department,
or are still relying on non-automated measures such as spreadsheets
or manual-entry databases.
Respondent Chris Robinson, IT director and partner at David
Langdon LLP, which provides consulting services for the
construction industry, said, "I know from my own experience that
translating IT performance into a value message to the board is
very difficult.
"I think it is primarily down to the background of a lot of
people who work in the IT industry. IT is still very much seen as a
technical profession, and the statistics show that it is struggling
to attract people."
He said things are improving, but slowly. "The way forward I
think is separating out the role of chief information officer and
chief transformation officer (CTO)," he said. "This idea is really
getting a foot hold in the industry at the moment. This would
separate the role of the technical CIO and the CTO, who translates
what the IT department is doing into business value. Plus more
people should move over from business to IT at a junior management
level."
Touchpaper CEO, Graham Ridgway, said, "Great CIOs are different
from good CIOs in that they do not just run a low-failure IT
department - they come across as businessmen. You need the
intervening steps of performance of the business and the IT
department, and this is what measurement provides."