Talk Business to Me

Tekrati on August 04, 2006

Business executives don't care about throughput or uptime; they care about the productivity boost that more uptime may bring. Though it's hardly groundbreaking news, three Cutter Consortium analysts say that IT executives need to work harder to effectively communicate IT's business impact. Position IT as a business service provider rather than a technology supplier, they suggest. Start by dividing IT activities into five service portfolios: application services, infrastructure services, user services, management services and project services. After doing so, express all of IT's costs in service-to-business terms. Similarly, assess the performance of each service portfolio in business terms, budget IT in service-to-business terms, and charge out IT to business units in service-to-business terms.