The Business Case for implementing IT governance frameworks

Organizations that effectively implement IT governance frameworks achieve their IT and business goals more frequently, according to a recent study of 538 organizations worldwide by the IT Alignment and Governance Research Institute of the University of Antwerp (ITAG).

The study was commissioned by ISACA to explore and demonstrate the business value of implementing the COBIT and Val IT frameworks.

Implementing these frameworks is perceived as costly and complex but the research shows that it does ultimately create business value. This study revealed that:

• A strong, positive relationship exists between the implementation status of COBIT and Val IT processes and the achievement of IT goals - the more complete the implementation of these processes, the higher the achievement of IT goals
• A strong, positive relationship exists between the achievement of IT goals and the achievement of business goals - the higher the achievement of IT goals, the higher the achievement of business goals.

These strong, positive relationships would also imply that the opposite is true, so not implementing these frameworks across the enterprise is likely to have an adverse effect on business performance.

ISACA's executive briefing on the study, Building the Business Case for COBIT® and Val IT™, can be downloaded from www.isaca.org/downloads.