Board of IT

A few months ago HP and Aussie law firm Mallesons Stephen Jacques released the results of an independent survey on IT governance of 155 large organisations. From this survey they concluded that in many cases IT strategies are not regarded as an integral part of business strategies because of the separation of the overall corporate governance strategy.

An MSJ partner commented:

"This lack of alignment between corporate governance and IT governance policies is surprising. Technology underpins the day-to-day operations of almost every significant business in Australia and is also essential to creating financial statements on which the market relies. Ensuring business continuity and the integrity of financial statements should be key elements of all corporate and IT governance policies and on the agenda for directors, CEOs and CFOs of all listed Australian companies. This is another instance where complying with legal obligations should result in a positive business outcome."

Good point but what interested me more was that apparently 78% thought that time costs and resources were the biggest barrier to compliance. Could it be what they are really saying is that they don’t really understand IT enough to manage it at a board level?

Tags: IT governance