IT Controlling and IT Productivity

Excerpt

Development and use of information technology (IT) is not an end in itself. Its primary purpose is to improve organizational efficiency and quality of managerial decisions. Besides efficiency and effectiveness, IT also enables new business models and innovative products as shown by numerous impressive entrepreneurial success stories. However, IT does not only create remarkable benefits, it may also generate substantial costs and risks. These are caused by the often enormous complexity of IT systems, the contingent development of the IT market and the imponderabilities of running IT projects. From a managerial perspective, it is particularly unsatisfactory that conceptualizing and measuring costs and benefits related to the development, use, and change of IT systems still poses a substantial challenge. To cope with this challenge, it makes sense to implement a specialized organizational function that is aimed at analyzing and promoting the business value of IT, at aligning IT services with business goals and vice versa, and at coordinating the activities of IT and business units. In German-speaking countries, the term “IT-Controlling” is frequently used to represent this function. Despite being derived from the English language, it is unfortunately not used in English-speaking countries. This has somewhat bizarre implications when translating “German” publications on “IT-Controlling” – the more so as there is no English term that directly corresponds to “IT-Controlling”. To cope with this unfortunate situation, the papers in this issue make use of “IT controlling” as an umbrella term for “IT performance management”, “IT/IS evaluation”, etc. …