Dr. Elliot King

There is still plenty of room for improvement within your IT infrastructures. Organizations are specifically facing challenges in deploying and using technology to support business analytics and growth strategies according to a recent study conducted by CFO Research Services and sponsored by IBM. The report entitled Finance Executives on the Value of Technology Investment for Midsize Companies was released in March 2011.

The research segmented the respondents into two groups - midsized companies with revenues between $100 million and $1 billion and large companies with revenues of more than $1 billion. It found that more than a third of the respondents in both groups (38 percent for mid-sized companies and 35 percent for large companies) felt there was room for improvement in monitoring IT performance. Nearly half of the respondents felt there was room for improvement in planning, budgeting and forecasting (46 percent and 46 percent for each group) and supporting business decisions (44 percent for midsized business and 48 percent for large businesses).

The biggest gap in the assessment of their need for improvement in their technology systems exists in identifying and managing risk. More than half - 53 percent - of midsized companies felt they needed to do a better job of identifying and managing IT risk while “only” 44 percent of big companies felt a similar need.

Perhaps that divergence between midsized companies and large companies in their perception of their need to identify and manage risk should come as no surprise. IT risk has many different sources. Security is the most obvious, but making sure IT systems comply with industry regulations also can be considered part of risk, as do implementing systems that misalign with business objectives as well as outright system failure.

It could be that large companies have more resources to throw at risk mitigation. It is more likely, however, that midsized companies are just more alert to their shortcomings - or more aware that they simply do not know exactly what risks they face - but know that they do not have the resources to do a better job. To steal a phrase from Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense in the administration of President George W. Bush, midsized companies may be more in tune with the idea that there are a lot of “unknown unknowns” out there that pose a threat to their businesses. Do you have a handle on risk assessment and management in your organization?

Imaged contributed by: cbenjasuwan