Tailor IT Governance to Your Enterprise

Enterprises can be divided into three major business orientations: synergistic, agile and autonomous. Although an enterprise may seem to have two or all three business orientations, one generally predominates. The key to effective IT governance is to use your business orientation to design your IT governance styles and mechanisms.

The enterprises cited in this report are exemplary top performers in at least one of three categories--profit, revenue growth or asset use. They also scored high on IT governance in the MIT Sloan and Gartner EXP research.

1: Shape your IT governance to your business orientation

The extent to which your enterprise strives for synergy, agility or autonomy should influence your IT governance styles and mechanisms. Identify your predominant enterprise business orientation as a first step in tailoring effective IT governance.

2: Synergistic enterprises emphasize enterprisewide styles, processes and executive committees

Synergistic enterprises face strong pressures for enterprisewide integration, aiming to leverage similarities and scale across business units. Their IT governance style involves constant enterprisewide business commitment and top-down technology mandates. Effective synergistic mechanisms emphasize clear decision processes, executive input and IT-business unit relationship managers.

3: Agile enterprises emphasize fast action and the use of principles and education

Enterprises striving for agility aim to act faster than their competitors. They emphasize local responsiveness and enterprisewide coordination to give leverage to the business units. Their IT governance style focuses on specific decision roles and how IT enables (or hampers) agility. Effective agility mechanisms make greater use of principles, ownership, business education experiences and multiple avenues of communication.