IT departments are facing increasing pressure to prove the business value of IT investments within organisations.
This was the word from Vincent Mello, manager: system administration and risk management for IT infrastructure and operations at Rand Water.
Mello was speaking during the ITWeb Governance, Risk and Compliance Conference, in Bryanston, yesterday.
According to Mello, measuring the value of IT in a business has never been an easy task for many organisations. "IT expenses are usually seen as a black hole by many enterprises," he said.
He said that to provide a single recommendation about how to measure IT and what metrics to use is difficult because business executives have very different goals for IT, which means the context or environment in which IT operates is a key factor and should be considered when researching IT payoffs.
However, Mello said IT reporting and measurement is critical in keeping businesses up to speed and can be a competitive differentiator.
Therefore, he urged IT to establish outcome and performance measures, supported by metrics and targets that assess progress towards the achievement of enterprise and IT objectives as well as the business strategy.
"It must also track IT process performance, IT investment portfolio performance, and measure IT service delivery by making use of outcome measures and performance drivers. They must also keep track of portfolio, programme and IT performance to relevant stakeholders in an appropriate, timely and accurate manner."
Mello also pointed out that performance measurement has to be in line with the organisational strategic objectives, while IT reporting has to be relevant to what is key to the organisation in order to make informed decisions.
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