Business & It Alignment
Business and IT alignment is represented by a good relationship between the information technologies and the business operations and processes. The aim of this business and IT alignment is to achieve the objectives, to optimize the work flow and maximize the company profitability. The problem is that, within the companies, the relationship between business and IT is not a very good one. Usually, there is a difficult communication between IT specialists and the other employees, due to the educational and cultural differences and to the fact that each part refuses to make any effort to understand the prerequisites and the needs of the other part. In economical language, this difficult communication is translated in expensive and many times, even useless IT systems, applications and infrastructures.
In this situation, business and IT alignment represents a concept of coordinating both these basic parts necessary for any company, for getting an adequate return on investment regarding the IT procurement process and improving the business value of information technologies investments. The business value id not generated only by the IT solutions and products, but also by the way they are used within the company. This is why the business and IT alignment includes the education and the modification of the organizations in order to exploit more efficient their IT resources.
The most important element of business and IT alignment concept is the good communication between IT and business representatives. If the business needs are clearly explained, if the technical specialists understand exactly what both the final users and the management are expecting to receive from the IT products and services, the IT teams will be able to deliver the appropriate solutions. The result will be the implementation of flexible and smart IT solutions, customized and designed to fit the specific business requirements and to address all the company's needs, not only for the present, but also on medium and long term, at a decent price.
Besides optimizing the dialogue between the business executives and the IT managers, the business and IT alignment is based on respecting the international standards and accords, because all these concepts are created and tested for many years by thousands of specialists in thousands of specific business environments worldwide. The main international standards respected and implemented by SolvIT are: Basel II, BS7799 and ITIL.
Basel II is the second of the Basel Accords. It is an international standard for the financial specialists in order to create rules regarding the capital banks need to guard themselves against the specific financial and operational risks. The aim of this standard is to protect the international financial system from the difficulties generated by an important bank collapse. Basel II accord is based on a set of rules and measures:
- A set of measures for operational risk
- A series of financial risk-management practices
- Numerous measures and rules for the companies to improve their risk-management practices.
The Basel II Accord has been already implemented in the European Union, for banks, building societies and investment firms. The new Basel II has three main elements:
- The companies must have a minimum capital, for credit, market and operational risk.
- The companies with additional capital against risks not covered in the first step must respect a series of rules and regulations and to act accordingly.
- The companies must be obliged to make public a part of their risks in order to educate the market.
BS7799 is an international standard with two parts:
- Part 1: ISO/IEC 17799:2000 - a code of best practices in the IT security area. This code includes 127 security controls distributes in 10 major areas. It covers a multitude of information environments, from mobile phones to internet and mobile computing. These controls are used to identify the security needs specific to a certain company, as well as the right solution to those particular issues. The advantage offered by this code is that a company should not implement all the security instructions from this guide, but only those useful for it.
- Part 2: BS7799-2:1999 - the international standard for Information Security Management Systems (ISMS). This is the tool used by the management to monitor and verify the security level in the company. First of all, this standard helps responsible people to identify and classify the information within a company in accordance with its importance. The next step is to find the scope of the information security management system and to identify the risk level. This security risk must be managed by implementing the specific security controls. The scope of implementing this international standard is to minimize the security risk specific to a certain company, respecting in the same time the legal and the business requirements.
ITIL - Information Technology Infrastructure Library includes a series of rules and regulations to help companies improve their IT infrastructures and to adapt them to their specific business needs, in accordance with the economic environment both on medium and long term.
IT Governance is one of the main concepts under the ITIL umbrella. It helps the companies (no matter of their industry vertical, management style of business orientation) to design and implement the best practices code of Information Security Management Systems. This implementation guarantees a serious reduction of the IT expenses, an increase of efficiency, and, in the same time, a real return on investment.
