Real Business of IT

INTRODUCTION

The authors of this book have spent most of the past decade of our working lives studying and advising CIOs and other leaders in improving the management and business value of IT. In that time, one issue has dominated all others for most of these executives: how the CIO can show that the value returned for the enterprise’s investment in IT exceeds the value invested.

It may amaze some readers that the value of something that has accounted for about half of all capital spending by businesses worldwide for years is in doubt. Indeed, if spending on IT is any indication, business leaders must know that IT has value. The problem is that they often don’t know where to find the value or how to measure it—and in many cases their CIOs can’t ...