Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 288 pages
- Published by: Harvard Business School Press
- Edition: 1st Edition June 2004
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 1591392535
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-1591392538
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Book Dimensions:
9.3 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
- Weighs: 1.3 pounds
Product Description
Seventy percent of all IT projects fail—and scores of books have attempted to help firms measure and manage IT systems and processes better in order to turn this figure around In this book, IT experts Peter D. Weill and Jeanne W. Ross argue that the real reason IT fails to deliver value is that companies have no formal system in place for guiding and monitoring IT decisions.
Their research shows that firms with explicit IT governance systems have twice the profit of firms with poor governance, given the same strategic objectives. Just as corporate governance systems aim to ensure quality decisions about corporate assets, the authors show, companies need IT governance systems to ensure that IT investments are made wisely and effectively.
About The Author
Peter Weill is the Director of the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) and a Senior Research Scientist at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Jeanne W. Ross is Principal Research Scientist at CISR.
Reader Reviews
This is the book that corporations have needed since the Dotcom bust. Having painfully learned that throwing copious amounts of money at IT professionals does not always result in effective information systems, many companies are confused as to the next plan of attack. Not a simple "how-to-run-your-IT" cookbook, Weill and Ross have studied how over 200 corporations manage their IT. There is no quick fix, no "silver bullet" that will solve all managerial angst. What emerges instead is a deeper understanding of the strategic role of IT for a wide range of large companies. By classifying IT decisions into 5 types, and then classifying the way decisions are made into several catchy "pop-psych" groups (such as IT Monarchy, Business Monarchy, Duopoly, and Federal) the authors have formulated a very succinct framework. This framework could act as a touchstone for those companies whose current governance is ineffective or unclear. Companies who are struggling with IT, and those of us who advise them, really need to read this book and consider the research conducted. Whether or not you are as enamoured of the framework as I, you should certainly be aware of it because it will be very important in future work.
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