IT Governance

IT Governance

Introduction

With the ever developing dependency on information technology and computers for each and every task, appropriate IT management has never been more significant. Without an excellent supervision of information technology, virtually any possible disaster may happen. This essay would present the role of IT managers in the strategic and support infrastructures of their organization, the need of good IT governance and the consequences of lacking fair IT governance in an organization.

What dynamic role do IT managers play in IT governance?

The meaning of IT governance as suggested by the IT governance institute articulates that IT governance is the duty and role of the executive and broad management and that IT governance must be an essential part of the corporate governance in any organization. IT managers focus on the efficient and effective internal supply of the IT products and services and the administration of the ongoing IT operations. In turn, IT governance is much more extensive and emphasizes on the performance and transformation of IT in meeting the current and prospect demands of the business; the internal focus, and the business customers; the external focus (Van Grembergen& De Haes, 2008).

This does not challenge the complexity and importance of IT managers however the facets of IT management as performed by IT managers together with the delivery of the IT products and services may be assigned to an external contributor. IT governance is specific to an organization and the control and direction over IT may not be entrusted to the market. The IT managers, in general are more engaged in the support infrastructure for the fact that the purpose of IT is supporting the strategic infrastructure of the company. For this reason, the IT managers must be an integral part of an organization's strategic planning as they may establish whether the information technology governance would endorse the plans of the company. The objective of the IT managers must be making the support infrastructure of the company line up with the strategic infrastructure of the company (Peterson, 2004).

Why is IT governance necessary?

IT governance specifically focuses on the systems of information technology, their risk and performance management. The major objectives of IT governance are to ascertain that the investments in the information technology produce business worth, and to alleviate the risks which are allied to information technology. This may be carried out by the implementation of the organizational structure with well established roles for the responsibilities of infrastructure, applications, business processes, and information. IT governance must be considered as the way IT established value which best suits the inclusive organizational corporate governance strategy and never be considered as a discipline of its own. Every stakeholder of the organization, in taking this approach, would be necessitated to take part in the process of decision making.

This establishes a mutual approval of responsibilities for the crucial systems and ascertains that the decisions related to IT are taken and steered by the corporate operations and vice versa. IT governance is required to ascertain that the investments in the ...