IT Leaders Africa Summit 2013 aims to define IT governance

As business and technology become inextricably linked, it's critical that IT is well governed in order to provide a cost effective, predictable, efficient service that provides maximum value to the business. Information technology is a crucial element for success in the contemporary business world as enterprises converge at the upcoming IT Leaders Africa Summit in March next year.

Enterprises are looking to adopt efficient and improved IT governance within their organisations in an attempt to take better control of business processes and cost saving efforts. Drivers for good IT governance include strong management for efficient organisation striving to operate the way clients would expect, and legislation and regulations imposed on the organisation for better control among industry competition.

In South Africa, the King Code of Governance Principles, more commonly known as King 3, and the Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Bill are two of the most recent common drivers with a direct effect on IT. Companies are required to meet numerous industry specific regulations to become strictly compliant, more specifically within the financial services industry.

Aligning IT strategy with business strategy

For successful IT governance, the enterprise needs to gain control in aligning the IT strategy with the business strategy, ensuring business objectives are in line with IT objectives and ensuring mechanisms exist to maintain the successful alignment on a real-time basis. The enterprise needs to ensure accountability for performance and risk management of IT and the continual focus on the elements of IT operations.

Maintaining focus on the value of delivery by IT will ensure the enterprise day-to-day operations and during system acquisition, development, or enhancement projects run smoothly without interruption. IT governance demands careful attention in applying standardised and practical IT policies and procedures for the organisation, streamlining and optimising communication within IT to maintain control over and derive enhanced value from your IT.

Changing approach

It is vital to change the approach to IT governance, focusing on assisting your enterprise in balancing the contrasting forces of performance and risk within the strategies and processes. Enterprises, whether public or private, large or small are increasingly becoming more aware that information is a key resource within the organisation and that IT is a strategic asset important to the economic success of the business.

IT governance is fast becoming an essential part of corporate governance among South African enterprise sectors including SMEs; focusing on improving and streamlining business policies and procedures, roles and responsibilities and decision making mechanisms to ensure that information technologies deliver measurable value to the enterprise. Streamlining these processes will ensure risks attributable to various dependencies on IT are known and appropriately addressed within an enterprise risk management framework.

Summit will address topical industry issues

The IT Leaders Africa Summit is set to address topical industry issues and challenges currently facing the enterprise, before and after adopting cloud and virtualisation environments. The summit will highlight recent developments in the ICT industry within South Africa and abroad, addressing all possible solutions through innovation and creation.

The summit will provide an exclusive business-to-business platform to share, network and engage in a focused interactive environment with IT industry peers, senior executives, government officials, senior decision makers, IT leaders and international guests.

The summit will cover top business issues and technologies, impacting your enterprise with strategic tactics needed to yield higher results and to gain a competitive advantage within the industry. Discover how to link technology to strategic business objectives and the importance of IT spending to successfully grow your business.

For more, go to www.itleaders.co.za.