Evolving from a cost center, IT is taking on the character, rigor and practices of a business within a business. Beneath the Buzz: IT Strategy IT strategy can be harmful to your health! What? Yes, if done wrong. Here’s how to approach strategy with your eyes open. Beneath the Buzz: Governance Does governance mean ethics? control? resource allocation? something else? It could be all of the aboveit can all be handled by a systemic approach. Beneath the Buzz: Shared Services By sharing a centralized IT group, business units gain many advantages. Easy? No. Worth it? Yes. Beneath the Buzz: SLAs Service level agreements are fundamental to the integrity of IT. IT As a Business Profiler With this tool, you can input your specific goal for running IT like a business and, based on the data, we’ll compute a profile of the practices optimized for achieving that benefit. How to Run IT Like a Business Evolving from a cost center, IT is taking on the character, rigor and practices of a business within a business. It won’t be easy, but for CIOs it’s a matter of survival. IT’s Secret Weapon: Internal Marketing It’s the best-kept secret for success: Marketing IT’s achievements will boost credibility, bring transparency and perhaps win approval for $2 million projects in under a minute. IT Incorporated USAA rebuilt IT as a for-profit subsidiary, turning IT services in products and IT employees into product managers. The dividends have been great for IT and even better for business. The Best Best Practices The basic building blocks of running IT like a business, as revealed by CIO research. The Rest of the Best Highlights of the data compiled from more than 100 respondents to CIO‘s survey “How to Run IT Like a Business.” Washington State’s Department of Infomation Services. Washington State’s Department of Infomation Services operates like a business that sells IT products and services to state agencies. The format is that of a mall — the Techmall, to be precise. Check out the Techmall, their rate card and online catalog. The IT Business Reading List Though still relatively rare, internal IT catalogs that list services and products available to the enterprise are perhaps the best vehicle for achieving cost transparency and reinforcing IT as a business within a business. Related content brandpost Sponsored by SAP When natural disasters strike Japan, Ōita University’s EDiSON is ready to act With the technology and assistance of SAP and Zynas Corporation, Ōita University built an emergency-response collaboration tool named EDiSON that helps the Japanese island of Kyushu detect and mitigate natural disasters. By Michael Kure, SAP Contributor Dec 07, 2023 5 mins Digital Transformation brandpost Sponsored by BMC BMC on BMC: How the company enables IT observability with BMC Helix and AIOps The goals: transform an ocean of data and ultimately provide a stellar user experience and maximum value. By Jeff Miller Dec 07, 2023 3 mins IT Leadership brandpost Sponsored by BMC The data deluge: The need for IT Operations observability and strategies for achieving it BMC Helix brings thousands of data points together to create a holistic view of the health of a service. By Jeff Miller Dec 07, 2023 4 mins IT Leadership how-to How to create an effective business continuity plan A business continuity plan outlines procedures and instructions an organization must follow in the face of disaster, whether fire, flood, or cyberattack. Here’s how to create a plan that gives your business the best chance of surviving such an By Mary K. Pratt, Ed Tittel, Kim Lindros Dec 07, 2023 11 mins Small and Medium Business IT Skills Backup and Recovery Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe