A call for IT and business managers to reformulate the way they manage IT, this book contends that if IT is to deliver business value, it should be measured in core business terms such as customer satisfaction, revenue growth, and profitability. Leading academic research and industry best practices are synthesized, and principles and strategies are presented for managing for optimum IT business value, the IT budget, and the IT organization's capability. In a time when IT spending is reduced and IT organizations are often perceived as cost centers, a necessary and timely counterbalance is provided, and the argument is made that IT investments can and should be linked directly to enterprise business indicators. Also discussed is how IT spending should improve corporate profitability and how the relationship between IT initiatives and business indicators should be explicit and empirical.
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Editorial Reviews
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"...Curley explains...how IT investments can be managed systematically and how quality IT investments can improve business fundamentals." -- Jeanne Ross, Principal Research Scientist, MIT Sloan Centre for Information Systems Research
"If you have any impact on IT in your organization, you owe it to your shareholders to read this book." -- John Fleming, CEO, Enzo Consulting
"Offers practical advice and insights into how to respond to these challenges . . . [Should be] required reading for all IT executives." -- Paul Tallon, Carroll School of Management, Boston College
"If you have any impact on IT in your organization, you owe it to your shareholders to read this book." -- John Fleming, CEO, Enzo Consulting
"Offers practical advice and insights into how to respond to these challenges . . . [Should be] required reading for all IT executives." -- Paul Tallon, Carroll School of Management, Boston College
About the Author
Martin Curley is currently Director of IT People, Intellectual Capital and Solutions at Intel Corporation, where he is responsible for the IT group's organizational and professional development, intellectual capital management and solutions prototyping. With this broad focus, Martin keeps IT in a position to meet Intel's future needs while advancing Intel's products and technology in the industry. Previously, Martin has also held IT management and engineering positions at General Electric in Ireland and Philips Electronics in the Netherlands. He brings to this book a broad base of experience running operational IT organizations at both GE and Intel, coupled with his role of co-Director of IT Strategy and Technology and as Director of IT People, Intellectual Capital and Solutions at Intel.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Solid outline of the requirements for systemised IT mgt.,
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This review is from: Managing Information Technology for Business Value: Practical Strategies for IT and Business Managers (IT Best Practices series) (Paperback)
Imagine you manage a utility, your customers expect your service anytime they want it, anywhere they happen to be, and at a low price. So far it's a pretty complex job, now imagine that your utility is subject to almost continuous innovation, with substantial changes happening every three to five years, and industry-transforming changes occurring approximately once a decade. Your customers expect all the new stuff, anytime, everywhere and cheaper than before. And, if that's not enough, your suppliers emit enough hype to make Hollywood blush, every new release is a blockbuster and a must-have.
Such is the life of the IT manager, or in larger organisations the CIO, Chief Information Officer - which, as the author suggests, could also translate as 'Career Is Over'. This book provides a framework for harassed IT executives to attempt to an organisational self-assessment , and outlines a methodology of getting closer to the customer. The framework is based on the Capability Maturity Model - a familiar concept originally designed to inculcate Quality Systems into software design- and builds a case for describing the evolution of IT departments from chaos through technical service provide to business partner. The methodology can be summarized as aligning IT products and services with customer requirements, and highlighting the costs of IT products and services i.e. being more explicit about 'pay-per-use' costings, so customers will budget as well as demand. There are good real-world examples of decisions taken, business cases ratified and changes justified and implemented through the book. The target reader is one who is part of a large IT organisation within an even larger corporate organisation, and is based on the author's experience in Intel, whose IT department has 4,000 people and a budget of €1billion [page 228]. In this world one department can become remote from another, and basic business processes need to be continuously clarified and communicated. The author recommends the use of account mangers and IT marketing departments to break through communications barriers - within the same company!. It did occur to me that, somewhere in this need for internal corporate influencing, there is a Dilbert cartoon waiting to get out. The book is strong on the methodology of governance of an IT function from the basics - do you have a list of IT assets? - through to investing in new innovations using an options approach - in fact, read Chapter 8 first. It occurs to me that the structural processes described in terms of steering committees, assessment methodologies, internal customer communication, external benchmarking militate against the ideal of developing a management which is flexible, innovative and agile. I guess this is the challenge - obviously some rationale is necessary, some structure required to manage a large organisation and this structure obviously works for this organisation. It does bring to mind Clayton's Christensen's dilemma that even excellent organisations, can be misdirected by following their customers requirements and while focussed on continuous innovation can miss an industry transforming wave. There is obviously a tension between becoming more customer focused in terms of service provision and the requirement to being agile and receptive to transformational innovations. A few quibbles.... One of the main tenets of the book is that IT departments must earn the trust of their business customers. There is curiously little said about techniques for managing quality of service issues, particularly for mission-critical applications. I expect large IT departments have qualification processes for introduction of new solutions, for measuring their quality, reliability and scalability, and I would have assumed that descriptions of how best to manage these - under real world conditions - would occupy more of the text. The concept of making the customer more explicitly aware of the costs of IT services is mentioned, but this is not expanded to a discussion of vendor management. With the advent of transaction based pricing strategies (e.g. Salesforce.com) it seems to me that software vendors may at last be forced to improve quality and customer service - as opposed to getting paid up-front licences and reluctantly providing 'support', I would have welcomed an insiders view of whether this is a trend that's actually bearing fruit or yet more hype. The research cited seems to be quite survey based, and left me feeling that just as in industry it's difficult to map IT-values to business values so in Information Systems research there is an absence of hard-numbers (and perhaps rigour?). This left me with the feeling that most of the research quoted was good on proposing frameworks, but unconvincing due to its being based on survey and observations. A couple of smiles.... To an outsider there are a number of unintentional insights into the corporate world. Through the text we had been introduced to Intel's CIO - a man, then mid-way through (page 177) we are introduced to a woman who is 'Intel's other CIO'. Presumably this is a transitional arrangement, but, on first sight, it occurred to me that Intel might be taking its failover strategy a bit too far.... . Also 'Directionally correct' is a term used through the book, and in the context seems to mean 'roughly accurate', but each time I read it I kept substituting 'close enough for government work', which I presume is not the intention at all. Overall this is a solid outline of the requirements for systemised management practices within the IT function. The book provides a framework which IT management (and their customers) can use for self-assessment and goal setting, and outlines a number of tools and processes by which Intel's IT department attempts to provide explicit value to its corporate customers.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Invaluable for those involved in IT decision-making,
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This review is from: Managing Information Technology for Business Value: Practical Strategies for IT and Business Managers (IT Best Practices series) (Paperback)
If you want to ensure that sound economic sense prevails over organisational politics when it comes to making IT decisions, then this book is an invaluable resource and immediately useful.
It provides a useful mix of what should be done with how it should be done. The presentation of ideas and approaches via maturity frameworks is helpful as it allows you to easily identify how effective your IT function really is and where it needs to be. Overall, it's clearly written and well presented. This book provides an excellent roadmap to enable the IT function to increase its business value to your organisation in a more meaningful and purposeful manner.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Book Description,
This review is from: Managing Information Technology for Business Value: Practical Strategies for IT and Business Managers (IT Best Practices series) (Paperback)
Managing Information Technology for Business Value is Martin Curley's call for IT and business managers to reformulate the way they manage IT. Traditionally, IT success has been measured in terms of IT parameters such as up time, capacity, and processing speed.
It is Curley's contention that if IT is to deliver business value, IT should be measured in core business terms---for example, customer satisfaction, revenue growth, and profitability. At a time when some corporations are reducing IT spending and once again looking at IT as a cost center, Martin Curley's Managing Information Technology for Business Value provides a necessary and timely counterbalance. Customer Comments "Curley's book is required reading for all IT execs. Ignore this book at your peril." -- Professor Paul Tallon, Carroll School of Management, Boston College "Curley shines a light on the path ahead for ambitious users of IT. If you have any impact on how IT gets used in your organization, you owe it to your shareholders to read this book. It will impact your bottom line!" -- John Fleming, CEO, Enzo Consulting "Martin Curley is a valued member of two very different communities---one populated by theorists who invent better methods to manage enterprises and the other populated by practitioners who put these methods to use." -- Jeanne Ross, Principal Research Scientist, MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research
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