Eliminating vulnerabilities and thwarting threats is harder than carrying Jell-O in a strainer on a midsummer day. To that end, complacency and negligent confidence have not yet become good substitutes for diligence and sound management. Just ask Bob Carr at Heartland Payment Systems, the latest in the seemingly nonstop parade of data-breached and disgraced CEOs.
Heartland’s fiasco may prove to be the most extensive and expensive yet. Over 100 million credit card numbers may have been compromised. Read about it in Computerworld, the Washington Post, PCWorld, Bank Information Security, The Register, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal.
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Monday, February 16, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
IT Progress Report: Mixed Results
The IT Governance Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers recently released An Executive View of IT Governance—a global survey of executives’’ impressions of IT governance in their organizations. More than 250 non-IT executives in 22 countries were interviewed to determine their views on IT’s contribution to the business and how their enterprises are governing their IT.
Low Impact on Innovation
Eighty-seven percent of senior executives believe that IT is important to their organization, and a significant majority recognize IT as a major contributor to efficiency and effectiveness. However, more than half do not feel that IT is an important contributor to innovation. Only a third of enterprises rely on their IT department to provide information about potential business opportunities enabled by new technologies. Organizational culture and skills shortages were cited as predominant barriers to innovation.
Governance Creates Value
Nearly half of all organizations do not measure the value they are achieving from IT, which may explain the high incidence of responses discounting the IT organization as a strategic contributor to innovation. Highlighting the benefits of strong governance, the study found a strong correlation between performance measurement, perception that IT meets senior management expectations, and extent to which IT investments contribute to value creation. Organizations that measure IT’s value and performance were more likely to report that IT is a strategic enabler.
Based on the challenges that executives identified in the survey, ITGI advises organizations to:
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Low Impact on Innovation
Eighty-seven percent of senior executives believe that IT is important to their organization, and a significant majority recognize IT as a major contributor to efficiency and effectiveness. However, more than half do not feel that IT is an important contributor to innovation. Only a third of enterprises rely on their IT department to provide information about potential business opportunities enabled by new technologies. Organizational culture and skills shortages were cited as predominant barriers to innovation.
Governance Creates Value
Nearly half of all organizations do not measure the value they are achieving from IT, which may explain the high incidence of responses discounting the IT organization as a strategic contributor to innovation. Highlighting the benefits of strong governance, the study found a strong correlation between performance measurement, perception that IT meets senior management expectations, and extent to which IT investments contribute to value creation. Organizations that measure IT’s value and performance were more likely to report that IT is a strategic enabler.
Based on the challenges that executives identified in the survey, ITGI advises organizations to:
- Take ownership of IT governance and assume overall accountability over IT.
- Make the CIO reporting line as direct as possible to the top executive decision body.
- Use external advisors, when necessary, as a source of knowledge and guidance.
- Pay more attention to the potential for innovation IT can offer.
- Start measuring the value that IT brings—or does not bring—to the enterprise.
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