Creating business value from technology

25 October 2007 by Alan Mumby

Many Chief Executives suspect that the biggest wave of IT investment in a generation has produced disappointing returns for shareholders. Major projects for the internet, the year 2000 bug, European Monetary Union and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) have consumed huge amounts of capital.

Typically, CEOs lack the technical background to quantify what might be possible from IT investments. And yet they rely for planning and implementation on IT Directors who often lack the general business experience to enable them to see the big picture. This dilemma has existed for at least 20 years.

Demand is therefore increasing for IT Directors with board business skills. That means the ability to go beyond running a technically efficient service operation to produce real business cost reductions or lay the infrastructure for increased revenues and profits; and to go beyond implementing technology to playing a pivotal role in realising the benefits.

Profile

A number of CEOs have recently challenged their IT departments to wake up to the need to create value from technology. IT Directors and Chief Information Officers with broad commercial wisdom and the tools to exploit it are rare. They face a bright future.

The most successful IT Directors and CIOs are easy to recognise. They mix with other executives on the management team and accept accountability for the delivery of value. They measure performance and push their teams to interact with and understand all branches of the company. Many are not deep technologists…….

View or Download Creating business value from technology