Johannesburg, 10 Apr 2007
Locally-listed companies are as well governed as those listed in London and Frankfurt, explained Mervyn King, author of the King Committee Report, at last week's ITWeb-BMC Software-hosted event.
At the business service management (BSM) forum, the former Supreme Court judge highlighted corporate governance as an essential part of any business, and pointed out how well SA is doing in that regard.
According to Arjen Wiersma, country manager of BMC Software, best practice IT processes form one of the three key aspects of BSM, including automated technology management and a shared view of how IT supports business priorities. "These lead to a greater connection between the IT of an enterprise and the business of it," he said.
Good IT governance is also based on intellectual honesty, said King, because the sharing of confidential information is so easy and one cannot legislate against negligence or dishonesty. Mervyn dubs the greed that led to the demise of a corporation like Enron the "corporate devil".
"IT governance cannot be one-size-fits-all," said King. A business must adapt methodologies to suit its personal needs and the board of directors needs a greater understanding of everything involved in the business. This is necessary to make good business decisions and take calculated risks because "risk... is the essence of business".
Others speakers at the conference included Peter Armstrong, corporate strategist for BMC, who spoke about managing IT as a business; Anton Scheepers, solution architecture capability head of Accenture SA, who discussed developing and implementing a service model; and Allen Lewis, BMC business development manager for African Legend Indigo, who presented a case study on Toyota Motorsport's IT services.
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