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Former Member
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Why do most people in life major in minor things rather than focus on the big questions? I think it is for the same reason why many companies focus more on reducing TCO than increasing IT enabled business value. They believe it is easier, less risky, better to measure and most others do it this way. Even if this might be true to a large degree, the biggest opportunities and rewards come from majoring the big things and focusing to increase business value with IT.


Of course, increasing efficiency and reducing TCO is important and that’s why I shared CIOs Top 10 Measures to reduce TCO in my last blog. However, in my opinion, increasing IT enabled business value is the more important mission. In this blog I share CIOs top 10 driver to move in this direction.


It is the third blog in a series to provide insights about IT Economics and discuss results from the 2013 edition of the CIO survey "TCO & IT Economics". 92 CIOs and IT manager from the German speaking SAP user group DSAGprovided their perspective on key questions and best practices.

Here are CIOs top 10 measures with the highest potential to increase IT enabled Business Value:

1. Business Strategy & IT Strategy Alignment

  • Regularly align business strategy with the IT strategy.


2. End User Training

  • Ensure sufficient training for the end-user.
  • Introduce more effective and cost-efficient trainings that can be used globally, both e-learning (live and on demand, with or without an instructor) and blended offerings (e-learning combined with classroom training).


3. Implementation/ Optimization of a joint Business-IT Planning

  • The main mission of joint business–IT planning is to determine investments in the application landscape, operations, maintenance, infrastructure, and other IT services, in strong alignment with the business.


4. Skill Management in the IT

  • Extend skill management beyond IT topics.
  • Only if the employees have a good understanding about "IT value management", they will be able to identify andrealize opportunities to increase business value


5. Quality Management

  • Ensure quality assurance, looking into risks and quality aspects that are associated with the project. Example – QA for Solutions: In particular the security design, the solution testing strategy as well as the project related development.


6. Joint IT-Business Project Portfolio Management

  • By planning and managing the project portfolio jointly, both partners – IT and the business – can better focus on the correct disposition of project-related resources.


7. Continuous Improvement/ Kaizen

  • Establish continuous improvement as an ongoing effort to improve solutions, processes and services, following the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen.


8. Implementation/ Optimization of a Super/ Key User Concept

  • A super / key user is a talented user within an organization who is brought into a position of leadership of one or more IT systems, supporting and instructing users, answering how-to questions, and making acceptance of the technology less challenging.


9. Justification of IT Projects with (quantitative) Business Cases

  • Develop detailed quantitative business case and financial ROI analysis for all major IT projects, outlining cost categories & benefit areas, specific sources of benefit for each area, and proposed operational impacts or changes.
  • Apply consistently pre-defined criteria for decision making.


10. Active Partnership with important main Suppliers

  • Foster the relationship and improve the collaboration with key suppliers, making it a true and active “win-win” partnership.

Lets start a discussion. Just take a moment and leave a comment!

  • What is your experience with increasing IT enabled business value?
  • What have been your best IT strategies to increase business value?
  • What did not work?

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