Calculating the return on investment (ROI) of any IT
project is not just a buzz phrase as a mantra in IT management
circles.
Stacey Smith, chief financial officer at Intel, said at the
European launch of the Innovation Value Institute (IVI) at the
National University of Ireland in Maynooth, that calculating IT
investments had “to an extent, been like shooting in the
dark”.
“Companies have had no way of verifying that their IT dollars are
being spent most efficiently, in a way that brings real value to
the business,” he said.
Smith said that in the face of tough economic condition, it was
imperative that IT heads could demonstrate the business value
derived from investments in IT. He added that to help CIOs and IT
heads make these strategic IT investment decisions for big
businesses an integrated and standardised framework was
required.
“The IT Capability Maturity Framework (IT-CMF) being developed by
IVI does exactly this – it addresses the fundamental problem of the
business value derived from IT spend by providing an end-to-end
framework to help CIOs make those difficult investment decisions,“
Smith added.
It is Smith’s view that this framework will enhance the CIOs
position in the boardroom by helping transform IT results into
pounds, shillings and pence, something that the rest of the board
and the business can understand.
IT-CMF is a concise management roadmap to optimise the business
value derived from IT investments, by allowing organisations to
assess their IT maturity level, benchmark against industry peers
and develop a clear roadmap for improvement.
IVI is a consortium of leading industry, consulting,
not-for-profit and academic organisation, which has spent three
years developing and testing new ways to align IT investments with
business. It has more than 40 members including Intel, Boston
Consulting Group, Microsoft, Chevron, SAP, BP and Electricity
Supply Board.
To find out more about IT-CMF watch our three exclusive video
case studies.
ComputerWeekly.com talks to three leading CIOs about their
experiences of using the IT Capability Maturity Framework (IT CMF),
which is a model that helps companies benchmark IT functions and
performance while identifying weaknesses.
CIOs:
- Laurent Allard – CIO of Logica
- Kevin Cooney – European MD and Global CIO for Xilinx
- Peter O’Shea – CIO of ESB (Electricity Supply Board)