The Evaluation and Improvement of IT Governance

Patricia Pérez Lorences,Lourdes Francisca García Ávila

doi:10.4301/s1807-17752013000200002

Abstract

The present article aims to propose a general procedure to evaluate and improve the Information Technology (IT) Governance in an organization, considering the Business–IT alignment and risk management. The procedure integrates management tools such as business processes management, risk management, strategic alignment and the balanced scorecard. Additionally, to assess the IT Governance level we proposed an indicator based on the process maturity. The concepts and ideas presented here had been applied in four case studies, verifying their implementation feasibility. The results indicate a low level of IT governance and the existence of several problems primarily in the Plan and Organize and Monitor and Evaluate domains.

Highlights

Information technologies (IT) have revolutionized the business world irrevocably and in the context of the information age companies increase their IT investments, becoming a major competitive component for companies (Dehning, Dow, & Stratopoulos, 2004)
The application of the procedure in four case studies lets us verify their implementation feasibility as effective methodological instruments to, first of all, assess the IT governance in these enterprises focusing on the main problems, and in second place to determine improvement opportunities that contribute to IT-Business alignment and risk management
We presented a new general procedure to analyze, evaluate, monitor and improve IT Governance in an organization

Summary

Introduction

Information technologies (IT) have revolutionized the business world irrevocably and in the context of the information age companies increase their IT investments, becoming a major competitive component for companies (Dehning, Dow, & Stratopoulos, 2004). Specific studies have shown empirically: the positive relationship between corporate profitability and the use of IT in business processes (Piñeiro Sánchez, 2006); the elevation of the productivity (Neirotti & Paolucci, 2007), the improvement in the performance of processes inducing elevation enterprise performance (Prasad & Heales, 2010), and the improvement in the performance of services (Roberto Giao, Mendes Borini, & Oliveira Júnior, 2010). The implementation of these resources is not enough to obtain the expected uses of IT.

Methods

Results

Conclusion