Published on the 21/08/2009 | Written by Newsdesk
Respondents – including Australian IT professionals – said they can’t be sure what they’re getting from their technology investment…
A survey of more than 1200 IT professionals in nine countries, including Australia, has found that while businesses believe they are realising value from their IT investments they cannot be sure because fewer than half have a shared understanding of value across the enterprise and two-thirds fail to fully measure it.
Conducted by ISACA, an association of 86,000 IT governance, security and assurance professionals, the Value of IT Investments survey found that half of the respondents believe they are realising between 50-74% of expected value from their IT investments, and nearly a fifth believe they are realising 75-100%.
Yet, half measure the actual value only “to some extent,” while one in 10 does not measure it at all.
At the same time, half of the respondents reported that accountability for such value measurements is delegated to the IT function itself, instead of remaining with the business, where it belongs.
The survey’s findings suggest there is a general lack of business accountability for value from increasingly significant and complex IT-related investments, with 49% of respondents stating that the CIO or IT managers are responsible for ensuring that stakeholder returns on such investments are optimised.
Only 15% said responsibility lies with the board, 11% the CEO and 9% the CFO. Remarkably, 8 percent said no one was responsible.
On a positive note, 76% of respondents are aware of the Val IT framework, and 44% of organizations questioned have such a framework or guidelines in place to select the investment that will result in the highest value.
Additionally, despite the challenging economy, 30% of companies are increasing their investments in IT this year, while only 13% plan to reduce spending and 14% plan to freeze it at the current level.
