Maximum insight brings minimum risk

For years business leaders have bemoaned the inability of IT to demonstrate its value and relevance in terms that can be readily understood and debated.

If organisations are to minimise risk and derive value from IT, they need to document and model the interactions between people, processes and IT.

CIOs are under growing pressure to minimise costs and squeeze greater value from IT assets, while supporting rapid business change. But they also need to understand the broader implications of their decisions.

How can organisations effectively assess an outsourcing strategy, understand the implications of merger and acquisition-driven consolidation, or assess compliance risk, without embarking upon a business-led discussion that references strategy across every part of the organisation and also considers key roles?

This lack of insight is a burden to private and public sector alike. The issue is not only poor information upon which to base decisions, but also the confusion that arises between individuals and departments working to different objectives and using different terminology.

What is needed is a common language to support relevant cross-business discussion and analysis. For IT to realise its potential in delivering value, organisations require a framework for capturing, illustrating and modelling the relationships, dependencies and dataflows between business and IT assets and resources in a business context.

Akin to the blueprints used by architects, a formal and structured way of communicating the relationships and dependencies between IT assets and resources can define business services of a modern enterprise in a way that is understood by all roles across an organisation.

Business resources and IT assets are regarded as providers of data, consumers of data, or the conduit through which the data can flow. A diagrammatic representation can be created based on dataflows across the organisation, providing a common, intuitive and easily understood diagram that facilitates communication and decision making.

This corporate DNA gives organisations a clear picture of how the business interlinks and the implications of change. Businesses can then establish a delivery platform, ensuring changes are implemented efficiently.

The risks are too high for organisations to make decisions based on gut feelings.

One way to minimise risk and deliver the consolidation and cost cutting required without jeopardising corporate performance is to achieve accurate communication across IT and the business. It is with this common language and intuitive, cross-functional approach that IT can fulfil its role as business enabler.

Richard Pharro is managing director of APM Group