Published: 10 September 2001
ID: G00100793
Analyst(s): Kris Brittain, Lynn A. Sechrest, Tom Berg
Management Summary The focus on information technology (IT) effectiveness and IT's contribution to the achievement of business objectives has increased significantly in the past five years. However, pressure on the enterprise bottom line and the resulting drive to increase productivity are now viewed by many IT executives as somewhat myopic. Today's IS organizations need to align IT objectives with business objectives, improve the perception of the IS organization and expand its role in enabling business processes. A decade ago, IS organizations were the central -- and usually the only -- source of IT services for enterprises. The current trend toward recognizing and offering alternative sources will continue. By 2003, 75 percent of IS organizations will refocus their mission toward the brokering of resources and facilitating business-driven demands rather than their traditional role as direct IT service providers (0.8 probability). To address the issue of IT effectiveness, more than half the IT service providers or IS organizations have already implemented or increased the use of a survey mechanism for measuring the satisfaction of the internal customers of IT services. These surveys have taken the forms of an annual poll, telephone interviews, focus groups, point-of-transaction questionnaires or a combination of these. Unfortunately, less than 1 percent of the surveying performed until now has succeeded in producing a concise list of top issues, a statement of these issues in business or end-user terms, the layout of a clear action plan and the ability to show improvement from year to year. Moreover, satisfaction survey methodology has not changed appreciably in the past 50 years. The only consistency in methodology has been the inconsistency of results from organization to organization, year to year -- and the nearly universal failure of their follow-through. The only outcome more counterproductive than the conclusion that the results of the surveys had...
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