Value-Based Communication Boosts Business' Perception Of IT

CIOs list IT-business alignment as a perennial challenge. They fail to achieve the business partnership they seek as the gap persists between business execs' expectations of IT and those execs' sense of IT's ability to deliver. But CIOs themselves are part of the problem as they measure and communicate operational excellence instead of business value, don't demand a business-value focus of their direct reports, and fail to connect directly with business peers. The solution? We found best practice CIOs taking a personal leadership role in positioning IT value, linking IT's internal activities to business value, and pushing business value in IT's interactions with other organizations. These CIOs have built out IT demand management (IT DM), including proactive IT marketing and business-value-driven IT governance. Less mature IT organizations must first approach effective business value communication by building out basic IT processes. But more mature IT shops can take more of a partner role, helping to expand the value IT delivers.