The Imperfection Of Information Technology : Governance

Having advanced technology nowadays can be both of assistance and a nuisance when it comes to handling Information in the workplace.

IT Governance is an internal IT strategy used to analyze and prioritize current and future IT projects through the IT governance process. It involves assessing current projects, defining future vision, and ensuring project road maps are structured properly. “Good governance enables you to make and implement better decisions faster, and provides the foundation for weaving together business and IT strategies (Broadbent, Kitzis, 2005).

IT governance is not only about IT. Do not make the mistake of believing that IT governance fits inside the walls of the IT organization;

Moreover, Ellis puts a great deal of effort in evaluating information operations (IO) and information technology (IT). I am impressed at his keen ability to grasp the strategic side of the all-consuming, yet critical and growing, IO and IT influences. The ability to control the inputs and outputs is a key for information management. As well, related to business management, Ellis surmises that to lead, a leader should get up from their desk and work directly with their people. This applies to management in

The purpose of the ITOG is to minimize duplicative efforts across geographies and operating companies as well as to serve as a platform for vetting through matters that include resource allocation, risk management, and change control. Each member of the ITOG will be responsible for overseeing IT projects in their respective markets or business units.

And what do we mean by governance? Quite simply, it’s how leaders run the business. CEOs, presidents, principals, boards and other key individuals enact broad policies and specific decisions that they believe will best serve the interests of the firm, their employees and clients. In most cases, these are choices

Internal controls are necessary for organizations of any nature and particularly those that are numbers driven such as accounting, and finance. They safeguard assets, maintain records, prepare and promote financial reports and operational efficiency, adhere to management and ensure compliance with regulations. “Information systems encounter serious security threats that may arise from the weakness of the internal controls and/or the nature of the competitive environment as the need and dependency on information increases” (Hayale & Abu- Khadra, 2006). With internal controls, organizations can bring out value and not just lessen their risk. And this is where becomes applicable. Cobit as a framework ensures that internal controls are effective and efficient. Cobit is the generally accepted internal control framework for IT. (ISACA, 2016).

Today’s digital world is governed by information, and its governance has become crucial for any organization. The way an organization handles the information i.e. generate, process, analyze and distribute information across all the business processes is Information Governance. It is about policies and the practices that enable us to make decisions about how information can be managed. It helps companies enforce the desirable behavior, in creating, using, managing and most importantly leading corporate decision makers with respect to information. Information governance is application policy to all information in an organization from its inception, creation to its final disposition. It has evolved a long way within a short time, from a mere record keeping to setting up broader frame work governance with, dedicated wings headed by top management. As information is becoming a valuable asset and the impact of it being significant, the organizations are optimizing methods to make the best use of it.

A steering committee comprised of personnel from internal audit, information systems, and the finance department are involved in developing the policies of and reviewing the operations of the IT department. This cross-departmental committee helps align the goals of the IT department and the firm as a whole, and helps establish segregation of duties at the manager level so as to establish a culture of openness. Taking this idea of establishing segregation of duties at the managerial level, we find comfort in the fact that the Chief Information Officer (CIO) reviews the logs of the VP, Applications. It is also worthy to note that the IT department has 4 executives that are responsible for different areas of the department and which the CIO is ultimately responsible for reviewing. Although the CIO manages the IT department as a whole, there are 3 levels of management, as the CIO reports to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and thus mitigates the risk that oversights or fraudulent activities will be missed. IT Management is a very important area as this helps dictate the tone of the department and helps establish the policies that are in place, but through our review of this ITGC area, we find little risk associated with IT Management and have found evidence that the audit team can rely on the controls put in place.

IT governance defines the IT structure, measures, and monitoring framework and should include business value created and delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner, risks identified and controlled, and assurance of effective oversight. The organization's missions and strategic directions must meet business needs for IT solutions, which requires corporate

-According to Richard Brisebois, Greg Boyd, and Ziad Shadid, “IT Governance focuses specifically on information technology systems, their performance and risk management. The primary goals of IT Governance are to assure that the investments in IT generate business value, and to mitigate the risks that are associated with IT. This can be done by implementing an organizational structure with well-defined roles for the responsibility of information, business processes, applications, and infrastructure.” (Brisebois, Boyd, and Shadid, n.d.).

The definition is fundamental to understanding concepts and artefacts; the variability of definitions reflects different perspectives of the topic. IT governance is interrelated to the concept of corporate governance, which is seen as a defined relationship and mechanism between management of organization- broad of the director, shareholder, and other executives; aiming to effectively govern a corporation (Korhonen et al., 2009).

An organization is a stable, formal social structure that takes resources from the environment and processes to produce products. It essentially focuses on three basic elements, which are capital, labor, and production. The technical definition of organizations is more stable than an informal group, formal legal entities, and social structures. While a behavioral definition of an organization is a collection of rights, missions, and responsibilities that are balanced over a period of time through conflict and conflict resolution. This definition underlines the people within the organization, their ways of working, and relationships. The technical definition demonstrates how a firm combines capital, labor, and information technology. However, the behavioral definition shows how information technology influences the inner workings of the organization.

In the early 2000s, the use of technology and the implementation of information systems was steadily increasing. Many at times, numerous emerging technologies, existing technologies and management information systems were implemented and are still being implemented to solve modern day problems. However, there are still major flaws that such systems can create and only prove to have disadvantages that derive from the original unsolved problem. Some of these problems resulted from solutions that are unique and innovative. Just within the past decade, information system analysts and researchers have been and are still working on the design and utilization of information technology in the right manner with the user and organization in mind. Debatably, there are various IT artifacts that are essentially analyzed such as why the information system (IS) was built in the first place, how it is to be used and what the final impact of the system is.

“Governance” here refers to the nature of relationships between buyers and sellers, including the extent and type of their interactions with one another.