In an economy in permanent change, where consumers are more and more multi-connected, volatile and demanding, companies have to show constant agility. Their digital transformation is one of the new ambitions falling to the companies that want to stay in the race. But to do so, they have to seek to optimise the use of their data for the benefit of the corporate strategy.
The information system has to change within a new, more efficient organisational and decision-making ecosystem. IT governance is then the best guarantee of effective steering of the information system. Nevertheless, to fully succeed, it has to be able to address a set of crucial challenges that affect the very paradigm of the company and shape the developments of tomorrow.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Continuing to create value through strategic alignment
- Feeding IT performance in the service of clients
- Keeping the financial costs of IT under control
- Knowing how to lead change and anticipate future needs: managing people
- Developing the management of data-related risks
- Towards generalised IT governance
CONTINUING TO CREATE VALUE THROUGH STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
The changes made to the way you operate, to decision-making processes and to technologies have to make it possible to stay on course for your company’s value-creation goal. To succeed with IT governance, it is essential to integrate all of these changes into the general strategy of your company so that they serve it in the best possible way represents a major challenge.
Strategic alignment between the IT components and your company (as a whole) then makes it possible to maintain overall consistency. The same goes for taking into account all of your company’s business strategies. Strategic alignment therefore appears as a performance factor for IT governance, maximising the potential of the information system.
Provided it is well run, putting IT governance in place is a lever of performance and efficiency for your company. It contributes to the overhaul of ways of working and to data management in order to stimulate collaboration and sharing between the IT department and the business functions. By adopting only the best technologies, the most suitable ones, on the basis of a fine-grained analysis of needs, it improves productivity.
To meet the new challenges of our economy, it is necessary to promote the agility and innovation that will help companies adapt better to an environment in perpetual change. By answering business needs, it is possible to consolidate an information system as a real source of profit for your company. It then has to be able to prove its effectiveness in the service of the wealth creation of your company. What matters is keeping the ROI (return on invest) of your information system in your sights, always seeking to answer the needs and expectations of your target customers.
KEEPING THE FINANCIAL COSTS OF IT UNDER CONTROL
Data needs are becoming more and more pressing in companies. The data collected and stored is growing significantly, even exponentially. All of this contributes to rising costs. The IT department then finds itself constantly multiplying one-off answers to recurring requests. But it must not come down to management by cost. With IT governance, these costs are rationalised and kept under control while maintaining a cutting-edge standard and optimal efficiency of the information systems.
Keeping your company’s information system budgets under control will have to lead to a reduction of costs on some items, an increase on others and the inclusion of new needs. Thanks to tailor-made services, it is possible to spend only according to clearly defined needs and thus to optimise costs. But to get there, a genuine analysis based on all of the business departments of your company is needed.
KNOWING HOW TO LEAD CHANGE AND ANTICIPATE FUTURE NEEDS: MANAGING PEOPLE
IT governance rests on a better definition of the respective roles of each of the players concerned and on a change in skills within your company. This makes it possible to optimise decision-making processes and the management of the information system. These changes have to be fully accepted by every member of the company. A change management process is necessary to address this challenge effectively and to produce trust.
What is more, a company is in permanent movement of building, transformation and invention. Information system governance has to be able to conceive of itself within an adaptive organisation in order to anticipate the developments to come. The level of IT skills of the staff can be addressed through training so that it is fully in line with these needs. A roadmap of the changes in view is then an excellent pragmatic tool. To manoeuvre with ease in such a context, responsiveness appears to be a central criterion of good IT governance.
To be fully effective, the IT governance of your company has to be able to determine risks, to measure them and to manage them. A clear view of them is necessary in order to monitor them and react quickly if need be. Watch mechanisms, as well as incident management, have to be worked out as soon as the IT governance policy is defined. The regulatory context and traceability in particular remain crucial points to take on board.
Risk management has become so strategic for companies that it can represent a real competitive advantage. Every time strategic decisions are taken, a risk assessment has to be carried out within your company. Control processes must therefore be designed with full transparency and consistency in order to make it possible to optimise information security.
TOWARDS GENERALISED IT GOVERNANCE
Technological progress, the Cloud and big data heighten the value of data. Like patents, machines or receivables, data tends to be regarded as a genuine asset of companies. So IT governance is not only strategic for every company, it is tending to become a prerequisite of the first importance simply to continue to exist.
The ability of companies to collect, manage and make the most of their data will therefore make the difference. Optimised IT governance is the governance that will have to make the best choices, in a context of information overload, for information that is profitable over the longest possible periods. This optimisation of cost, quality and durability is crucial for the future. It calls for an ambitious IT governance strategy.