IT, in the future, will have either a strategic or a utilitarian role - and it is up to CIOs and IT managers to determine which route their companies will adopt.
This was the core message from Unisys Africa consultant Grenville Payne on day two of ITWeb`s IT Governance conference in Midrand last week.
The strategic use of IT involves integrating it into the business, while the utilitarian use involves marking it a distinct entity and outsourcing it, he explained.
"IT should no longer be a discrete entity - it should be subsumed into business," he said.
Payne believes SA should soon see the emergence of a new generation of executives who are more comfortable with technology and more able to understand its implications in business.
IT governance should be managed differently in every organisation, he said. "It`s a question of which [compliance strategy] is most applicable for your company at that time - a company should find the generally accepted process that suits it.
"The only time it becomes best practice is when it delivers value to you - so best practice differs from company to company."
He believes the key drivers pushing the changing nature of IT in an organisation will be globalisation and virtualisation, ubiquity, societal pressure for good governance, and alignment with business processes.
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