Running IT Like a Business: Planning for Success

by Mark Bills

Many companies are dissatisfied with the current business performance of their IT organizations and are therefore considering different strategies to create more business focus within those organizations. One approach receiving a lot of attention is to run IT as a business within a business. The rationale behind this concept is simple: if IT acts like a business, it will utilize a broader range of business practices, such as those from finance and marketing. The belief is that implementing these additional business practices will solve long-standing IT performance problems, such as poor returns on IT investments and poor service quality.