Infosys and The Concours Group share a passion for ensuring both the business success of CIOs and the bottomline success of the information technology function. Elevating and shaping the perspectives of the CEO and Board of Directors as to the role of information technology are essential to these goals. A fundamental responsibility of the CEO and the Board is to ensure that a corporation’s assets are applied in pursuit of a sound business strategy, and that the value of these assets is preserved. These assets include people, financial capital, intellectual capital, facilities, marketplace relationships, and information technology.

This Boardroom Imperative suggests ten questions that the CEO and Board should be asking today about the business
use of IT. Posing these questions and assessing the answers do not require detailed knowledge of technology itself. They do depend upon – and help to build – an understanding of technology’s true business potential.

Why should the Board care about IT issues?

Because IT is at the heart of business performance, differentiation, and value. It’s hard to find a major business process or initiative these days that does not involve IT. The accompanying chart lists the top management, marketplace, and technology issues identified in a recent survey of CEOs. You’ll notice that the management and marketplace issues demand effective technology, while the technology issues are really all about business performance. In information-intensive enterprises, the business is the system – and vice versa. And in less information-intensive enterprises, information about the product may be more valuable than the product itself.