IT management software company CA announced today, at CA World, in Las Vegas, that CA Labs is sponsoring a major research programme through UK business school Cranfield University Business School.
CA Labs is a team established in 2005 to strengthen CA`s relationships with research communities.
Aimed at studying the business value of IT management, the objective is to help businesses develop an approach to understanding and assessing the value of their IT management investments.
According to professor Joe Peppard, of Cranfield University Business School, the findings will also help establish current best practices related to how a company`s IT infrastructure can be managed to deliver business agility.
"As part of the programme, the university will interact with other universities, business schools and businesses around the world for empirical data collection and analysis, in an open innovation model," he says.
According to Peppard, businesses can take an intangible concept such as a brand image and calculate its value and impact on equity value, and the programme`s goal is to apply the same principles to IT management.
He says this is the first research of its kind in the industry. "The research will explore organisational patterns of behaviour, which will help establish the true value of IT management assets and how they impact long-term shareholder value."
Companies should look at IT management tools not as another cost to company, but as measurable assets. "In today`s difficult economic climate, it is crucial for CIOs to measure the value of their IT assets, because technology is a key enabler of business success and makes up a large chunk of any company`s capital investment."
Peppard says metrics for new IT projects and existing IT management and assets are currently viewed on a cost basis. "In reality, IT value should be related to a company`s worth, and give an accurate, value-based metric for future investment."
He says once the data has been collected and analysed, the findings will be shown to practitioners and academics. It will include business value analysis case studies to show how businesses are using best practices to measure the value of their IT infrastructure in the real world.
"Almost every aspect of an organisation`s operations undergoes rigorous, regular measurement to evaluate its value to the business; with the exception of IT management," he says. "This project will help identify best practices related to how IT can be managed to achieve today`s business goals, as well as provide the agility for future demand. We want C-level executives to think differently about IT management, to perceive it as an asset underpinning future success, not an expensive legacy."
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