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Effective Communication of IT Costs and IT Business Value
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Although the average tenure of CIOs has increased over the last years, the majority of CIOs have been in their positions for only three years or less. Nevertheless, some CIOs have been successful in their position for a long time. In this study, we use tenure as a proxy for success as a CIO. The goal of this paper is to examine factors that are critical to the success of long-term CIOs. For this purpose, we created and analyzed resumes of 384 CIOs. Out of these 384, we conducted 19 interviews with CIOs from top-tier companies and collected and analyzed both qualitative and quantitative data. In the process, we were able to identify nine factors that are critical for the success (CSF) of CIOs. These factors fall into three categories. Category “Personality” includes “Accepting and embracing change” (CSF #1), “Being perseverant to pursue long-term goals” (CSF #2), “Anticipating the future through visionary thinking” (CSF #3), and “Being empathetic to deal with uncertainty felt by co-workers” (CSF #4). The “Role Fulfilment” category includes “Cross-functional involvement and integration of the IT organization” (CSF #5), “Positioning and restructuring of the IT organization” (CSF #6), and “Well-connected and communicative leadership” (CSF #7). The “Organizational Environment” category consists of “Availability of skilled workforce” (CSF #8) and “Reporting line to the CEO” (CSF #9). CSFs 1, 2, and 3 were perceived as most important by the participating CIOs. The results may be of particular interest both to aspiring CIOs and equally their employing organizations, as they reflect what long-term CIOs value during their time in office.
IT-business alignment has been the focus for top managers in the last two decades. Literature reported IT-business alignment as one of the key enablers for the success of IT in an organization. Given its importance, this study aimed at exploring the reported benefits of IT-business alignment, the proposed methodologies and the challenges in implementing these models. To do so, a systematic literature review was conducted to find answers to these questions. This study reveals that applying IT in an appropriate and timely way, in harmony with business strategies, goals and needs can result in plenty of benefits for an organization. These benefits include enhanced cooperation among members, competitive advantage, performance enhancement, high return on investment, facilitation of processes and growth among others. In fact, IT today is not only a tool but has become a business enabler delivering values for organization and this implies that huge investment on IT must be well managed and controlled in order to align IT with business. Also, the study reviewed some proposed methodologies or models that have contributed in achieving sustained alignment between business and IT. Lastly, the study reveals that, despite the inevitable benefits, there are still some difficulties or challenges organizations faced in establishing an atmosphere of honesty and humility between IT and business. These challenges are lack of effective communication, low return on IT investments, lack of the necessary skills to adapt to changes in technology or conflicting priorities.
This article addresses the concept of “communication” in strategic communication, and proposes a new lens through which to view communication in order to deepen knowledge of strategic communication, as well as to significantly improve the alignment of strategic communication with the demands of today’s strategy development process. Looking at modern strategy theory, this article focuses on communication theory as an ongoing process of meaning construction. It posits that communication is a process that is interactive by nature and participatory at all levels. This process is not necessarily two-way but omnidirectional diachronic, with an emphasis on the external and internal arenas of continuous meaning presentations, negotiations, and constructions. Strategic communication, therefore, needs to be conceptualized as an agile management process in which the focus is on feeding these arenas for strategy building and implementation, and on testing strategic decisions by presenting and negotiating these in a continuous loop.
The paper presents the results of a study concerning the use of the fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram in analyzing the causes (factors) that determine the success of the research and development projects. The studied problem was “the successful development of R & D projects” and this constitutes the head of the fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram skeleton. This study aims to identify the possible, main and secondary causes that could generate the studied problem. For the proposed problem the type factors will be identified: man, methods, machines, management, materials, and others. It will draw a fishbone diagram because it has several advantages. The diagram allows for a clear definition of the problem studied and provides a visual graphical diagram of the factors that determine the problem - the success of a research and development project. It is proposed the steps of realization the diagram. They are determined many possible causes and these are grouped into seven categories of causes for the problem: Man, Methods, Materials, Machines and equipments, Management, Political factors, Social and Economic factors. This paper proposes a new diagram model (5M+P+SE), a fish skeleton that is composed of seven main branches, thus: five type M branches, one P-type branch and one SE-type branch. The development of the Ishikawa diagram in a detailed form for determining the possible causes of a problem has the advantage of giving the possibility of identifying and analyzing all the factors connected to the problem. Knowledge the success factors is important in order to create all the favorable conditions for a research and development project to be successful. Finally, the proposals for the successful development of a R & D project will materialize in practical solutions.
In present, dynamically developing organizations, that often realize business tasks using project-based approach, effective project management is of paramount importance. Numerous reports and scientific papers present lists of critical success factors in project management, and communication management is usually at the very top of the list. But even though the communication practices are found to be associated with most of the success dimensions, they are not given enough attention and the communication processes and practices formalized in the company’s project management methodology are neither followed nor prioritized by project managers. This paper aims at supporting project managers and teams in effective managing communication and documentation processes. Its main contribution is the definition of eleven communication management patterns, which promote a context-problem-solution approach to communication management in projects, in the four complementary categories regarding project communication management practices – informational, strategical, emotional and practical, and as such can be used to deal with different types of project communication management problems.
This paper empirically investigates how adoption of IT governance and management processes, as identified in the IT governance framework COBIT 5, relates to the level of IT-related goals achievement, which in turn associates to the level of enterprise goals achievement. Simultaneously, this research project provides an international benchmark on how organizations are currently adopting the governance and management processes as identified in COBIT 5. The findings suggest that organizations are best in adopting the “IT factory†related management processes and that implementation scores drop in management and governance processes when more business and board involvement is required. Additionally, there are significant differences in perceived implementation maturity of COBIT 5 processes between SMEs and larger organizations. Also, the data offers empirical evidence that the COBIT 5 processes have a positive association with enterprise value creation.
Owing to the increasing regulatory pressure and the need for aligned IT decisions, governance of IT has become important for both academia and practice. However, knowledge that integrates the determinants and consequences of IT governance success remains scarce. Although some studies investigate single aspects of IT governance success and its impact, none of these combine these factors into a comprehensive and integrated model. To address this gap, our research aims at understanding what factors influence and result from successful IT governance, and at determining how they can be translated into a model to explain IT governance success and its impact. Therefore, we conducted 28 interviews in 19 companies across different industries. Based on the analysis, we present a model that helps understanding what factors make IT governance successful and how IT governance contributes to an IT organization's success and, eventually, unfolds to the overall organization. Thus, it allows organizational decision-makers to develop an effective IT governance implementation and to explain the implications of successful IT governance.
The main objective of this study is the development of a model of conversational
competences for Business and IT managers aiming at the strategic alignment between
their areas. The theory of this alignment highlights the importance of communication
between Business and IT areas, which is explored in the social dimension of their
managers’ relationship through conversational competences. A survey research was
performed with Business and IT managers from public and private organizations in
Brazil, whose data were analyzed through multivariate statistical techniques –
exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis – and thematic content analysis. The
results confirmed the constructs and most of the hypotheses of the proposed research
model, which was expanded with new constructs and hypotheses.
Business-IT alignment still remains one of the three main research streams in IS literature, and from 1994 it constantly ranks among the top three concerns of CIOs. While a lot of research has been published around business-IT alignment in the last three decades, a number of models have been proposed to structure the concept into various dimensions and levels. However, only a few studies have been made regarding the critical success factors. Moreover, we were unable to find any systematically consolidated evidence in this regard. This is a major gap because research is collaborative venture and each researcher build on what have been found and understood before. After searching some of the most comprehensive science databases such as ScienceDirect, JStore, ACM Digital Library, SpringerLink we could identify only six articles on the matter. Using the model proposed by Schlosser et al. (Schlosser, et al., 2012) to structure the alignment concept, our results show that most of the identified CFSs are related to individual skills and knowledge of IT and business executives.
Owing to increasing regulatory pressure and the need for aligned information technology (IT) decisions at the interface of business and IT, IT governance (ITG) has become important in both academia and practice. However, knowledge of integrating the determinants and consequences of ITG success remains scarce. Although some studies investigate individual aspects of ITG success and its impact, none combine these factors into a comprehensive and integrated model that would lead to a more complete understanding of the ITG concept. To address this gap, our research aims at understanding what factors influence and result from successful ITG, and at determining how they can be translated into a model to explain ITG success and the impact thereof. Therefore, we conducted interviews with 28 IT decision makers in 19 multinational organizations headquartered in Europe. Our study synthesizes the fragmented previous research, provides new empirical insights gathered on the basis of a clear ITG conceptualization, and suggests three innovative constructs heretofore not related to ITG. Moreover, we elucidate in a holistic model the factors that make ITG successful, how ITG contributes to an IT organization’s success, and how it eventually unfolds throughout the overall organization. The resulting model allows organizational decision makers to develop an effective ITG implementation and to explain the implications of successful ITG, thus providing a justification for the respective investments.
Owing to the increasing regulatory pressure and the need for aligned IT decisions, governance of IT has become important for both academia and practice. However, knowledge that integrates the determinants and consequences of IT governance success remains scarce. Although some studies investigate single aspects of IT governance success and its impact, none of these combine these factors into a comprehensive and integrated model. To address this gap, our research aims at understanding what factors influence and result from successful IT governance, and at determining how they can be translated into a model to explain IT governance success and its impact. Therefore, we conducted 28 interviews in 19 companies across different industries. Based on the analysis, we present a model that helps understanding what factors make IT governance successful and how IT governance contributes to an IT organization's success and, eventually, unfolds to the overall organization. Thus, it allows organizational decision-makers to develop an effective IT governance implementation and to explain the implications of successful IT governance.
Hello everyone. The publishers have given me permission to upload chapter four and the contents pages. Unfortunately, I am unable to share any other chapters for copyright reasons. There is however a large amount of material on my YouTube channel marksaundersonresearchmethods.
Mark
Pickering and Garrod (2004) argued that alignment is the basis of successful communication in dialogue. In other words, successful
communication goes hand-in-hand with the development of similar representations in the interlocutors. But what exactly does
this mean? In this paper, we attempt to define alignment, contrasting alignment of situation models with alignment of linguistic
representations. We then speculate on how these notions are related and why they lead to conversational success
The senior management of many organisations are continually disappointed with the benefits and value which they perceive they are getting from their investments in IT. This frustration with IT, and in particular with the IT function, has seen many organisations choose to rid themselves of the ‘problem’ altogether by outsourcing IT activities to a third party. The fact that there is a separate organisational unit responsible for IT activities has led to the emergence of gap between this so called IT organisation and the rest of the business. Culture is often used to explain the gap as if this somehow justifies an organisations inability to effectively leverage IT. However, the premise underlying this article is that culture is an excuse for rather than a cause of ineffective application of IT for business benefits and value. The clear message from this article is that achieving high performance from IT is not just about the IT function's ability to build, maintain and deliver systems, but is an organisational wide activity requiring a strong business/IT partnership. A framework grounded in the research literature, which identifies the elements to manage in creating high performance from IT, is developed and operationalised. The findings of an exploratory survey are presented and research and practitioner implications developed.
Much of the work on the business value of IT has examined relationships between IT inputs and economic outcomes of the firm. Yet, business executives and researchers continue to question the value of IT investments. We argue that while the current trajectory of research in this important area is useful, it is limited. In order to address the evolving nature of IT and the novel contexts in which it is being exploited, we must create a discontinuity in our thinking of how IT value should be studied. After summarizing what we have learned thus far, we discuss key new research themes that must be addressed if IT is to be demonstrably relevant. Further, we identify specific research thrusts, areas for theoretical development, and research questions on IT-based value that must be included in our research agenda for the future. We conclude by challenging IT researchers to consider the consequences of status quo research themes versus an expanded set of research questions.
A common and critical dilemma confronting enterprises today is how to ensure that they realize more value from their large-scale investments in IT and IT-enabled change. This article describes the choices made by the Dutch airline KLM to more fully engage its business managers in the governance of IT and the change-agent role played by a new CIO Office. The article identifies the benefits achieved and lessons learned thus far as the company has evolved from managing the cost of IT toward managing the business value of IT.
We provide a review of the alignment literature in IT, addressing questions such as: What have we learned? What is disputed? Who are contributors to the debate? The article is intended to be useful to faculty and graduate students considering conducting research on alignment, instructors preparing lectures, and practitioners seeking to assess the 'state-of-play'. It is both informational and provocative. Challenges to the value of alignment research, divergent views, and new perspectives on alignment are presented. It is hoped that the article will spark helpful conversation on the merits of continued investigation of IT alignment.
Die digitale Transformation verstärkt den Einfluss der Informationstechnologie auf den Unternehmenserfolg erheblich. Damit erhöhen sich auch die Anforderungen an das Führungssystem der IT in den Unternehmen. Hier gilt die einfache Weisheit: Ein ungeeignetes Managementsystem bringt in der Regel schlechtere Entscheidungen mit sich. Wie Sie zielorientiert bestimmen, wer im Unternehmen wie auf IT-relevante Entscheidungen einwirken soll, zeigt Ihnen Christopher Rentrop mit viel Übersicht.
Nowadays, organizations must invest strategically in information technology (IT) and choose the right digital initiatives to maximize their benefit. Nevertheless, Chief Information Officers still struggle to communicate IT costs and demonstrate the business value of IT. The goal of this paper is to support their effective communication. In focus groups, we analyzed how different stakeholders perceive IT costs and the business value of IT as the basis of communication. We identified 16 success factors to establish effective communication. Hence, this paper enables a better understanding of the perception and the operationalization of effective communication.
Nowadays, information technology (IT) is a strategic asset for organizations. As a result, the IT costs are rising and there is a need for transparency about their root causes. Cost drivers as an instrument in IT cost management enable a better transparency and understanding of costs. However, there is a lack of IT cost driver research with a focus on the strategic position of IT within organizations. The goal of this paper is to develop a comprehensive overview of strategic drivers of IT costs. The Delphi study leads to the identification and validation of 17 strategic drivers. Hence, this paper builds a base for cost driver analysis and contributes to a better understanding of the causes of costs. It facilitates future research regarding cost behavior and the business value of IT. Additionally, practitioners gain awareness of levers to influence IT costs and consequences of managerial decisions on their IT spend.KeywordsDelphi StudyStrategic Cost DriversIT Cost DriversCost BehaviorInformation Technology
In the digital age, information technology (IT) is a strategic asset for organizations. As a result, the IT costs are rising, and the cost-effective management of IT is crucial. Nevertheless, organizations still face major challenges and former studies lack comprehensiveness and depth. The goal of this paper is to generate a deep and holistic view on current management challenges of IT costs. In 15 expert interviews, we identify 23 challenges divided into 7 categories. The main challenges are to ensure transparency on IT cost information, to demonstrate the business impact of IT as well as to change the mindset for the value of IT and overcoming them requires attention to their interactions. Hence, this paper leads to a better understanding of the issues that IT cost management (ITCM) faces in the digital age and builds a base for future research.
This paper applies design science research methodology to iteratively develop a framework for measuring and communicating IT business value from a CIO perspective. The framework design is based on analysis and integration of literature combined with empirical findings. The framework was evaluated by CIO interviews and a practical feasibility study. The results show that IT business value can be measured and communicated using our framework by applying six consecutive process steps. Thereby, IT business value is not a single number but a set of quantitative and qualitative metrics relevant to stakeholders. Our framework represents a novel and integrated approach on how CIOs can select appropriate metrics, measure, and communicate IT business value to stakeholders. In addition, the paper provides insights for CIOs on how to be successful in IT business value management.
The reliance on information systems, Internet, and networking technology and infrastructure has made Information technology (IT) become the fundamental elements in many areas. That’s why organizations that pursue success are highly anticipated to invest tremendously in attaining flawless IT implementations. In ensuring the IT spending made a wise decision, necessary steps were taken to perform vital evaluations of the IT investments beforehand. Varieties of evaluations available, with different approaches adapted to different style of organizational preferences. Nonetheless, the essential part of it is the expectations of returns or values. Once the investment has been made, the achievement of the returns and values indicates the successfulness of the IT investment spending. But not all cases of IT investments end with success stories. Many have ended contrary to what organizations have expected. Lesson learned, studies have recommended to couple the evaluation aspects with enablers of IT investment success or success factors. This paper reviews the current literature regarding the IT investment evaluation approaches and proposes an Ishikawa diagram that describes the factors that influence the success of the IT investment. In this paper, six factors of IT investments enablers are discussed which are Financial, Internal, External, Strategic, Technological, and Risk.
Business and IT strategic alignment is continuously explored from different facets motivated by the demands for organisation to be well aligned in its business and IT strategies for business continuity. The management aspect rather than technological issues often causes misalignment in business and IT strategies more significantly. One of the issues is the communication ineffectiveness between business and IT people involved in planning the business and IT strategic alignment. Difficulty to achieve mutual understanding between these two teams is a critical problem in communication and hinders the successful alignment. Therefore, a set of determinants for mutual understanding is proposed. Extensive analysis on literature has been carried out to identify and define the determining factors. The review can serve as a reference for business and IT executives to improve in their communication effectiveness towards achieving well aligned business and IT strategic alignment.
This article reports on an investigation of IS stakeholders communication and mutual understanding, and their impact on the success of business/IT alignment. In particular, by following a hermeneutic study of transcripts of two focus groups and several interviews conducted with senior business and IT executives, the paper explores the issues of modern business context and practices, project scope and structure, trust, language and nomenclature, and the barriers to the effective stakeholder communication and understanding. The study results are finally compared against the standard model of business and IT alignment. The main unexpected finding being executives' pre-occupation with issues of "marginal" value to the alignment model, such as day-to-day management of communicative and understanding effectiveness, as opposed to the fundamental issues of strategy and infrastructure fit.
Business Research Methods contains new and revised chapters on quantitative methods and visual research, while cutting-edge material on inclusivity and bias in research, feminist perspectives, and decolonial and indigenous research is also introduced. The book is composed of four parts. The first part looks at the research process. It covers research strategies and designs, as well as ethics in business research and writing up business research. Part 2 looks at quantitative research and details the nature of quantitative research, sampling, structured interviewing, and questions. It also looks at secondary analysis and statistics. The next part is about qualitative research. This part examines ethnography, participant observation, interviewing, focus groups, language, and document data. The final part is about mixed methods of research.
Since firms rarely collect data on the precise economic or financial impacts of information technology (IT), perceptions play a key role in assessing IT impacts. To the extent that executives in the same firm evaluate IT impacts similarly, it can be easier to approve future IT investments or to initiate corrective action for failing IT investments. In this study, we use distributed sensemaking theory to investigate the conditions under which executives will reach a consensus as to the extent and locus of firm and process-level IT impacts in their firm. Using data from surveys of 133 top-level business executives in 13 firms, we show that consensus is a function of CIO-led sensegiving in the form of IT promotion, CIO leadership, information systems (IS) engagement with end users, and IS-business communications. The absence of consensus – discord – suggests IS disengagement, a lack of effective CIO leadership, weak IT-business communications, and ineffective promotion of the role of IT. Sensegiving does not mean telling executives what to think about IT but rather how to think about IT and its impacts at various points within the firm. Whether IT impacts are rated high or low, efforts to create increased consensus among executives can greatly enhance value from IT.
An abstract is not available.
It is cleaaar that eventhough information technology (I/T) has evolved form its traditional orientation of administrative support toward a more strategic role within an organization, there is still a glaring lack of fundamental frameworks within which to understand the potential of I/T for tomorrow's organizations. In this paper, we develop a model for conceptualizing and directing the emerging area of strategic management of information technology. This model, termed the Strategic Allgnment Model, is defined in terms of four fundamental domains of strategic choice: business strategy, information technology strategy, organlzational infrastructure and processes, and information technology Infrastuvture and processes--each with its own underlying dimenslons. We illustrate the power of this model in terms of two fundamental characteristics fo strategic management: strategic fit (the interrelationships between external and internal components) and functional Integration (integration between business and functional domains). More specifically, we derive foru perspectives for gulding management practice in this Important area.
Convergence (i.e., mutual understanding) between an organization's CEO and CIO is critical to its efforts to successfully exploit information technology. Communication theory predicts that greater communication frequency and channel richness lead to more such convergence. A postal survey of 202 pairs of CEOs and CIOs investigated the effect of communication frequency and channel richness on CEO/ CIO convergence, as well as the effect of convergence on the financial contribution of information systems (IS) to the organization. Convergence was operationalized in terms of the current and future roles of information technology (IT) as defined by the strategic grid. Rigorous validation confirmed the current role as composed of one factor and the future role as composed of three factors (i.e., managerial support, differentiation, and enhancement). More frequent communication predicted convergence about the current role, differentiation future role, and enhancement future role. The use of richer channels predicted convergence about the differentiation future role. Convergence about the current role predicted IS financial contribution. From a research perspective, the study extended theory about communication frequency, media richness, convergence, and the role of IT in organizations. From a managerial perspective, it provided direction for CEOs and CIOs interested in increasing their mutual understanding of the role of IT.
CIOs need effective approaches for measuring, monitoring, and communicating performance about the management and use of information technology in their firms. Traditional IT metrics such as IT budgets or IT spending as a percentage of revenue can foster a focus on reducing IT costs rather than emphasizing the business value of IT investments, their role in improving business processes, and their ability to enable business innovation. Based on interviews with CIOs and other senior managers from 23 organizations, we present a framework to guide CIOs in using IT, business process, and business unit metrics for communicating with CEOs, other senior business executives, and their own direct reports. Case examples are provided for five multi-metric domains that emerged from our data analysis. We also provide guidelines for how CIOs can develop a portfolio of measures that matter to business leaders and then evolve them to improve the value that IT brings to the overall organization.
Many companies are increasing their expenditure on information and communication technologies (ICTs) to obtain or even sustain a competitive advantage in their respective marketplaces. However, managers are often left with the quandary of how to evaluate investments in such technologies. Reasons of this difficulty have been suggested in the normative literature as centring on the socio-technical (human and organisational) dimensions associated with the deployment of ICTs. The inability of managers to determine the true costs of deploying ICT are considered attributable to a lack of knowledge and understanding of ICT related costs. In developing a broader picture of such costs and their respective taxonomies, the research presented in this paper uses a structured case method, to gain an understanding of how a construction firm embraced the information technology (IT) evaluation process. A review of the IT cost literature is presented and a conceptual framework (CF) to examine IT related costs is proposed. Findings from the case study are presented and discussed in the context of the CF.
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