The Business of IT: How to Improve Service and Lower Costs

Drive More Business Value from IT

and Bridge the Gap Between IT and Business Leadership

• Apply business practices throughout IT to optimize budgets and improve ROI
• Create higher satisfaction and more realistic expectations for IT throughout the business
• Written by two leading IBM experts on bringing business discipline to IT

IT organizations have achieved outstanding technological maturity, but many have been slower to adopt world-class business practices. This book provides IT and business executives with methods to achieve greater business discipline throughout IT, collaborate more effectively, sharpen focus on the customer, and drive greater value from IT investment. The book focuses on four specific areas of business practices related to improving IT service management, managing services cost and value, measuring IT performance with a goal of improving service and lowering cost, and improving customer alignment. Drawing on their experience consulting with leading IT organizations, Robert Ryan and Tim Raducha-Grace help IT leaders make sense of alternative ways to improve IT service and lower cost, including ITIL, IT financial management, balanced scorecards, and business cases. You ll learn how to choose the best approaches to improve IT business practices for your environment and use these practices to improve service quality, reduce costs, and drive top-line revenue growth.