Real Business of IT: How CIOs Create and Communicate Value

Richard Hunter · George Westerman

oct 2009 · Harvard Business Review Press

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If you're a general manager or CFO, do you feel you're spending too much on IT or wishing you could get better returns from your IT investments? If so, it's time to examine what's behind this IT-as-cost mind-set.

In The Real Business of IT, Richard Hunter and George Westerman reveal that the cost mind-set stems from IT leaders' inability to communicate about the business value they create-so CIOs get stuck discussing budgets rather than their contributions to the organization.

The authors explain how IT leaders can combat this mind-set by first using information technology to generate three forms of value important to leaders throughout the organization:

-Value for money when your IT department operates efficiently and effectively

-An investment in business performance evidenced when IT helps divisions, units, and departments boost profitability

-Personal value of CIOs as leaders whose contributions to their enterprise go well beyond their area of specialization

The authors show how to communicate about these forms of value with non-IT leaders-so they understand how your firm is benefiting and see IT as the strategic powerhouse it truly is.

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Richard Hunter is Group Vice President and Gartner Fellow in Gartner Research, a division of Gartner, Inc., the world's largest technology research firm. George Westerman is a research scientist at MIT Sloan School of Management's Center for Information Systems Research (MIT CISR), which Ziff Davis named the world's "most influential IT academic research center." They are coauthors of the award-winning book IT Risk: Turning Business Threats Into Competitive Advantage.