IT Governance to Drive High Performance: Lessons from Accenture

This pocket guide provides you with an insider's detailed description of Accenture's IT governance policy and details its governance structure. It will show how effective IT governance links IT strategy and IT decisions to Accenture's business strategy and business priorities. Following the best practices approach set out in this pocket guide will serve as an excellent starting point for any organization with ambitions to achieve high performance. Benefits to business include: *Boost productivity* How hard do you work in other areas of your business to cut costs and improve efficiency? In testing economic times, is the absence of a clear strategy for your business s IT governance still a realistic option? Learning from Accenture s proven approach will enable you to increase your organization's competitiveness over the longer term. * Coordinate your operations * To ensure effective decision-making and align your IT function with your broader business goals, you need to make the structure of your IT governance fit your overall corporate governance structure. That way, you can make your IT work for your business. * Manage change effectively * IT is crucial for realizing the changes you want your business to make. For this reason, you cannot afford to have these changes treated merely as IT projects that have been foisted on the company by the IT department. By bringing top management on board, and giving business leaders a formal role in the IT governance of your organization, you will make the success of any project with an IT component much more likely. * Keep a grip on budgets * The costs of IT projects are notoriously prone to overrun, while some IT development programs have promised more than they ever delivered. The Accenture way of doing business is different. Following the Accenture approach means ensuring that your IT investment is backed by a solid business case, and measuring the return on investment following project completion.