Top 5 Benefit of Good IT Governance

1. Transparency and Accountability
- Improved transparency of IT costs, IT process, IT portfolio (projects and services).
- Clarified decision-making accountabilities and definition of user and provider relationships.

2. Return on Investment/Stakeholder Value
- Improved understanding of overall IT costs and their input to ROI cases.
- Combining focused cost-cutting with an ability to reason for investment.
- Stakeholders allowed to see IT risk/returns.
- Improved contribution to stakeholder returns.
- Enhancement and protection of reputation and image.

3. Opportunities and Partnerships
- Provide route to realise opportunities that might not receive attention or sponsorship.
- Positioning of IT as a business partner (and clarifying what sort of business partner IT is).
- Facilitate joint ventures with other companies.
- Facilitate more businesslike relationships with key IT partners (vendors and suppliers).
- Achieve a consistent approach to taking risks.
- Enables IT participation in business strategy (which is then reflected in IT strategy) and vice versa.
- Improve responsiveness to market challenges and opportunities.

4. Performance Improvement
- Achieve clear identification of whether an IT service or project supports “business as usual” or is intended to provide future added value.
- Increased transparency will raise the bar for performance, and advertise that the bar should be continuously raised.
- A focus on performance improvement will lead to attainment of best practices.
- Avoid unnecessary expenditures – expenditures are demonstrably matched to business goals.
- Increase ability to benchmark.

5. External Compliance
- Enables an integrated approach to meeting external legal and regulatory requirements.