CIOs Need To Act As Investment Managers To Best Manage Their Options

In today's competitive environment, it is crucial to have the flexibility to react to rapidly changing market conditions. Companies obtain flexibility by creating options — to scale up or down, to add or adapt business processes, or to support the business in quickly exploiting market opportunities. In many ways, IT is like the factory in a manufacturing organization. Full plant capacity limits options. Excess plant capacity makes the organization more nimble and more valuable than a less flexible competitor. However, if not actively managed, such options will expire worthless. CIOs should segregate options from the general IT investment pool and aggregate and manage them within an architecture or asset management group.