Felix Thattil, Director & CIO, TurtleDove Technologies & TurtleDove InfraServices

TurtleDove Technologies LLP is a business strategy and technology organization headquartered in Mumbai. Felix Thattil serves as the Director and CIO at TurtleDove Technologies and is backed with over two decades of experience in building technological strategies & objectives. He is also involved in many IT related debates to CIO & CTO audience and is also the member of the Gartner Research Circle.

IT Governance focuses specifically on structuring how organizations can align IT strategy with business strategy, by making sure that companies stay on track to achieve their strategies and goals and simultaneously measure IT performance. It should be how IT creates value to fit in overall governance strategy at the corporate level in the organization.

IT Governance Constraints
Organizations face many constraints when trying to implement Governance structure, mainly where significant investment are involved for IT. Chances of failure are high in IT projects without effective governance. Environmental, political, geographical, economic, and social issues contribute their own sets of unique challenges to each organization. Any one of these issues can create hindrance in providing effective governance. Following are the common inhibitors related to IT Governance:

• Senior management not being enthusiastic for IT
• Pitiable Strategic Alignment
• Lack of Project Ownership
• Poor Risk Management
• Unproductive Resource Management

Importance of IT Governance
Efficient governance in an organization does not happen by accident. The success of implementing effective governance in an organization linked with the right prototype or fit for the organization so that they can be a balance or supplement of organization's strategic focus. Information technology (IT) governance is not an inert concept but is a process inherent in the organization.

Decentralized organizations need a regular evaluation to renew the IT governance structure to take account of shifting business and technological surroundings. IT Governance is a part of enterprise governance. Mechanism of IT governance in an organization depends on the characteristics and needs of the organization. Like ISO/IEC 38500 help the people at the upper levels in the organization to understand and accomplish their legal obligations, regulations and ethics in relation to the use of IT in their organizations by providing key principles.

We should understand that information, information security and information technology are always business issues, not just the IT issues. IT Governance consulting assists organizations to provide a framework for properly managing their information technology strategies and achieving desired goals.

IT Governance Evolution and Success it brings in Business"
Organizations in order to derive maximum benefits from IT governance, should treat it as an ongoing priority i.e. ensure constant improvements in IT governance practices to acclimatize to changing business and IT environments.

In today’s business situation with its complexity, required to be responsive, the costs to an organization can be important to stay competitive and meet business initiatives and challenges. An organization might face challenges and business problems like Global competition, product development costs, regulatory compliance, new business opportunity, and lack of skilled staff. While addressing any of these issues, the organization must be sure that the value of the business internally and the value provided to its customers is maintained or improved. This influences the executives to focus on how they can grow, sustain, change, and manage the organization to meet these challenges pertaining to corporate policies, processes, and IT infrastructure and systems that are required.

Governance is all about leadership. IT governance is about the way headship achieves the delivery of important business capability using IT strategy, goals and objectives. IT governance is concerned with strategic coalition between the goals and objectives of the business and the utilization of its IT resources to effectively achieve the desired results.

However, structuring ourselves into networks is counter-intuitive and assembly of teams and sub-teams can often be a frightening task. Furthermore, experience has taught us that, as teams grow in size and as the mission of the organization grows larger and more complex, the ability of individuals to communicate effectively and to share a consistent vision decreases significantly.

IT Governance can help to standardize approach for process improvement that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes. It can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or an entire organization. We must recognize that measurements must be taken at several levels within an organization.

Conclusion
In summing up, IT is a central part of the organizational delivery structure. IT Governance is the basic part of corporate governance. IT Governance ensures that IT goals are met and IT risks mitigate in a way that IT delivers value for organization to grow and sustain. IT Governance drives strategic alignment between IT investment and planned delivery and must thoughtfully measure performance.