Running It as a Business

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cioinsights

magazine

www.sas.com/cioinsights

Running IT as a business

Seven steps to aligning IT with the business

By Kate Morton, Global Practice Manager for Costing and Profitability, SAS Australia

The benefits of aligning

IT with the business

• Improve management control.

• Understand and communicate the

financial and non-financial value of

each IT project and operation.

• Comply with legislative requirements.

• Reallocate IT resources to projects

of most importance to the business.

• Facilitate the elimination of IT

projects that are not delivering.

Seven steps to aligning IT with

the business

The massive growth in IT over the past

decade has moved it from being a backoffice support function to a critical business unit. IT now ranks among the top

five expenditures of most companies.

CIOs have to show how the money is

spent, the returns they are getting for

their investments, and how IT is driving

corporate performance. This increased

role requires focus, vision and, above

all, transparency – into services, costs,

demand, processes and impact on corporate performance.

Cost management and transparency

For the CIO to compete for resources,

the IT function needs to operate as a

business within a business – providing

valuable services to the rest of the organization. The CIO must effectively educate the organization and provide clearly

articulated and relevant cost information.

A detailed understanding of the cost

within the IT business provides clear and

positive advantages to the CIO and the

wider organization:

• Ensuring optimal resource allocation

to areas of greatest value.

• More effective allocation of resources

to “areas of need.”

• Reducing complexity within IT and

simplifying internal processes.

• More informed budgeting

(capital and operating) and pricing

of new projects.

• Greater understanding of IT capacity

and ability for delivery.

• Ability to link IT...