For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Addressing Diverse Stakeholders In The IT And Business Services Buying Process

Planning For 2010 Requires A Clear Understanding Of Roles

by Chris Andrews, November 20, 2009

For years, Forrester has written about the evolution of information technology (IT) into business technology (BT) — an idea that is rooted in Forrester's view that technology is becoming more relevant and strategic to business processes. This trend, which . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Driving Multitenancy In Your Virtual Environments

How To Get Business Units To Share Your Consolidated Infrastructure

by James Staten, November 18, 2009

As you continue to consolidate your server infrastructure and make it more cloudlike, a key hurdle you and most enterprises must overcome is the sharing of physical infrastructure between business units (BUs). While some organizations have a centralized . . .

For CIOs

Best Practices In IT Financial Management

The Foundation For Running IT Like A Business

by Craig Symons, November 6, 2009

In a recent Forrester survey of 84 enterprise IT decision-makers, only 52% said that they have a formal IT chargeback process in place. It is difficult to run IT like a business when the product appears to be free to customers but costs the business hundreds . . .

For CIOs

Forrester's Best Practices Framework For BT Leadership Maturity

Use Our Self-Assessment To Accelerate Your BT Transformation

by Bobby Cameron, Tim DeGennaro, November 6, 2009

As CIOs help their firms succeed with business technology (BT) — pervasive technology use with increased direct control by the business — they struggle to answer two deceptively simple questions: 1) How are we doing? and 2) what should we do better? These . . .

For CIOs

Catalog Of Technical Services  (66 KB XLS)

by Alexander Peters, Ph.D., Wolfgang Benkel, November 6, 2009

The workbook defines 10 generic profiles of technical services and associates provisioning processes and activities with each of them. The activity-based descriptions enable IT executives to establish the link between technology assets, resources, and . . .

For CIOs

A Catalog Of Technical Services Improves The Manageability Of The BT Service Portfolio

by Alexander Peters, Ph.D., November 6, 2009

Business technology (BT) changes IT's roles within the enterprise, forcing IT leaders to deploy business service processes and technology demand management. CIOs are embarking on the IT-to-BT journey by concentrating their efforts on the consolidation . . .

For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

When Selling EA Value, Context Is Everything

Align Your Value Message With Your Marketplace To Make It Stick

by Katie Smillie, Jeff Scott, November 3, 2009

Describing success as a result of being at "the right place at the right time" is often akin to saying "I just got lucky." So rather than waiting for the right place and time to market EA's value, continuously craft your message around what will be successful . . .

For CIOs

CIOs: Business Alignment And BT Enablement Require Business Capability Maps

At Your Level, You Can't Rely On Any Other Single IT Business Model

by Bobby Cameron, October 30, 2009

CIOs are aggressively tackling their planning and management challenges, deploying tools and building models to address a wide variety of functions like asset management, IT services management, application rationalization, business process efficiencies, . . .

For Marketing Leadership Professionals

Marketing Leaders Take On Technology

So What Happens Now?

by Lisa Bradner, October 28, 2009

Marketing leaders understand that technology is critical to their success — 61% of marketers in our survey agree that "marketing technology is a key component in my marketing organization's success." To get the most from their technology investments, . . .

For CIOs

IT In The Public Sector In Australia

Benchmarking Your Practice Against Your Global Peers

by Tim Sheedy, October 28, 2009

With the tightening of IT budgets in the Australian federal government due to the review of IT operations by Sir Peter Gershon, the considerable consolidation of public sector agencies at the state level, and the considerable drop in tax revenues brought . . .

For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

Case Study: WestJet Creates Clarity With Its Architecture Services Catalog

by Jeff Scott, October 26, 2009

EA organizations struggle to define what they do in terms the organization both understands and appreciates. The root cause for this struggle is often that the EA team itself is not clear about what it delivers, what stakeholders it is delivering to, . . .

For CIOs

IT To BT Transformation: Threats And Opportunities For CIO Reporting Lines

by George Lawrie, October 26, 2009

CIOs face many threats and opportunities as they grapple with the IT to BT transformation — including the risk of being sidelined by their line-of-business peers. Forrester surveyed 47 enterprise IT decision-makers to understand CIOs' level of confidence . . .

For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

Successful EA Programs Integrate Specific Value Levers And Accelerators

by Jeff Scott, October 22, 2009

CIOs intuitively understand the value of a well-architected environment but are less certain of how (or if) their enterprise architecture (EA) teams deliver that value. This disparity generates a great deal of discordance in EA efforts: Companies charter . . .

For CIOs

The Value Of A Green IT Maturity Assessment

Introducing Forrester's Green IT Maturity Assessment Methodology

by Doug Washburn, Christopher Mines, October 20, 2009

CIOs recognize the importance of environmental considerations in planning IT operations, but they are often unsure about how to put that recognition into action. With sustainability rising on the corporate agenda, and the cost, risk, and revenue benefits . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Aligning With Business Customers Requires Strategy, Stakeholder Focus, And Metrics

by Chris Andrews, October 20, 2009

Creating greater alignment with business customers is an incredibly hot objective for technology strategists and one that is supported by powerful long-term market trends. Our recent survey of strategy professionals found that 91% of respondents say that . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Smart Grid Technologies: Coming To A Utility Near You

Modern IT And Communications Systems Are Transforming The US Power Industry

by Roy C. Wildeman, October 19, 2009

Today's energy companies face an unprecedented quandary of regulatory requirements, market pressures, and public scrutiny that, in combination, act to disrupt traditional approaches to cutting costs and servicing consumers. With the recent federal stimulus . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Making The Case For The Next-Generation PMO

Broader Visibility And Flexible Frameworks To Tackle More Work Without Killing The Budget

by Margo Visitacion, October 16, 2009

There isn't a business case for the "old school" project management office (PMO): We've tried it, and quite often it didn't work. Today's PMOs are under pressure to be business process change agents that demonstrate value without generating revenue. PMOs . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

How To Work With IT To Get (Most) Of What You Want

A Guide For Interactive Marketers As They Collaborate With Internal IT Groups

by Neil Strother, October 15, 2009

Many interactive marketers find their interactions with IT to be positive, but others struggle with conflicting team priorities, slow response times, or differing communication styles. To successfully engage with IT, interactive marketers must: 1) define . . .

For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

What's Next For The IT-To-BT Transformation: The Contractualization Trend

by Henry Peyret, October 14, 2009

The combination of the current economic climate and business globalization is accelerating the evolution of business models toward a networked model, where businesses focus on their core competencies to add value and engage with other external and internal . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Improving The eBusiness And IT Relationship

Making The Relationship Work For You With Our TEAM Framework

by Brian K. Walker, October 6, 2009

eBusiness and IT are inextricably linked. You cannot have an effective and productive business online without an effective technology environment and the support of great technical resources. Yet we hear every day from eBusiness leaders about how the . . .

For CIOs

Driving Value With Process Improvement

CIOs Recommend Nine Best Practices For Business Processes Management

by Alexander Peters, Ph.D., October 6, 2009

Senior business executives recognize the value of technology in supporting business operations and expect CIOs to help drive process improvement efforts — all while tuning and elevating IT's relationship with the business. CIOs from various industries . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

A Sample IT Infrastructure And Operations Balanced Scorecard  (41 KB XLS)

by Rachel A. Dines, Evelyn Hubbert, October 1, 2009

The Balanced Scorecard is built around four dimensions that have been adjusted for use in information technology: the value perspective, the user orientation perspective, the operational excellence perspective, and the future orientation perspective. . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Building The IT Infrastructure And Operations Balanced Scorecard

The Eight Essential Metrics That Infrastructure And Operations Should Be Measuring

by Rachel A. Dines, Evelyn Hubbert, October 1, 2009

"You can't manage what you can't measure" is the stated adage, but when it comes to infrastructure and operations (I&O), what to measure is the first challenge. Many firms don't know which metrics to use, or how to collect the information they need . . .

For CIOs

Inquiry Spotlight: Demand Management, Q3 2009

by Tim DeGennaro, September 30, 2009

Despite reduced IT budgets, demand for IT services continues and in some cases accelerates as the business strives to use IT to cut its own costs. Organizations that simply roll with the punches with a FIFO approach quickly find that IT's efforts produce . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Lean: The New Business Technology Imperative

Lean Thinking Is Central To The Shift From IT To BT

by Connie Moore, Clay Richardson, John R. Rymer, Ted Schadler, Dave West, September 29, 2009

Everyone wants to be lean these days, whether when stepping off a scale in the morning or reviewing the cost of running a successful business. But just how do you define "Lean" — especially in the context of business and technology? Do you think of Lean . . .