Still poor alignment between business and IT: study

Angus Kidman
Monday, 11 December 2006 11:24

IT Industry - Market

There's not a CIO on the planet who hasn't been endlessly lectured about the importance of matching IT projects with business goals, but new research indicates that many of them are still doing a lousy job of the task.

A study carried out by the Economist Research Unit and sponsored by BMC Software suggests that many companies are still failing to achieve alignment between IT goals and business goals.

According to the survey, which polled around 570 senior business executives, just 42% of executives in Australia believe such an alignment had been achieved. The figures for the US and Europe were somewhat higher (at 56% and 64% respectively), but that still means that in the best-case scenario, one-third of IT projects aren't being matched to business requirements.

Across the Asia-Pacific region, a lack of IT investment, lack of understanding of IT's role by business leaders, and a lack of IT comprehension of actual business needs were the most commonly cited road blocks to creating better alignment.

Disturbingly, 6% of Australian respondents said they had no idea what objectives they were planning for, and Australia was the only country in the world where some companies had no idea who took ultimate ownership of IT projects. Looking for a new job might be a sensible strategy in both those cases.