Although IT governance is starting to receive more attention from local companies, many have not yet addressed disaster recovery and business continuity issues.
This is according to Arnaud Wiehe, group IT audit manager at Barloworld. He says current IT governance regulation is becoming a significant business driver as regards business continuity and disaster recovery, particularly in small to medium companies.
However, there are still organisations "where IT managers are exclusively operationally focused and pay no attention to control or governance issues", which greatly increases their risk profiles.
Wiehe will speak at ITWeb`s IT Governance 2005 Conference, which will be held at Gallagher Estate in Midrand on 29 and 30 June.
"I`d like delegates to give some thought as to the 'real` status of business continuity and disaster recovery within their organisations. I`ll take them through the lifecycle of a typical implementation based on the guidelines of the Business Continuity Institute, which will equip them with the knowledge they need to assess the status of their own initiatives," says Wiehe.
Fellow conference speaker Tony Maddison, MD of Realyst, will discuss contract lifecycle management at the two-day event.
"Gartner announced at their 2004 conference in Cape Town that contract lifecycle management will be a $24 billion industry by 2007 and is the next killer application," says Maddison.
"Contracts are the foundation of a business. A contract is the one document that clearly describes the relationship and is designed to mitigate the risks in that relationship as well as measure the performance, define the financial transactions, define the processes for termination, renewal and so forth. Contracts are a significant source of risk in an organisation, and the lack of proper contract management processes increases these risks," he says.
Although there is a definite growing awareness of the risks, "many companies are still grappling with the value to be derived and the best way to implement such an initiative; it does require a leap of faith," states Maddison.
The conference will be opened and chaired by Judge Merwyn King, chairman of the King Committee on Corporate Governance, senior counsel and former judge of the Supreme Court of SA. King will also lead a panel discussion at the event.
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