CTcon: IT controlling
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IT con­trol­ling

Why this matters

In their search for efficiency, companies are focusing their attention on their IT departments' economy and quality. Such units are often the company's largest cross-cutting department by budget, but also the least understood. Current reasons for developing IT controlling include

  • the introduction of quantity-based IT management, which enables market comparisons,
  • the inclusion of non-monetary aspects such as service quality or risks,
  • the gathering, professionalisation and standardisation of IT services in proprietary shared services centres, and the outsourcing of IT services.

Challenges

The main challenge lies in the multiplicity of IT business models: application development, compute capacity and storage media, networking and voice, workplace systems and software licensing – managing it all poses a range of challenges. In IT demand, it is IT services that are in the foreground – in IT supply, it is technologies and resources. IT economy depends to a large extent on the interplay between the two perspectives.

Key questions

Key questions in structuring IT controlling range from strategic to operational:

  • IT governance: which IT-related decisions are made at a central, decentral or federal level?
  • Management approach: which approach is used to allocate the costs and revenues of IT services to clients and within the IT department (i.e. profit centre vs cost centre)?
  • Controlling concept: from the perspective of head office, is the IT department managed as a “black box” (based on output and costs) or as a “white box” with a more differentiated view of processes and resources?
  • Instruction and penetration depth: should IT controlling create transparency regarding the achievement of objectives or should it conduct causal analyses to give concrete recommendations to management?
  • Management dimensions: which objectives are in the foreground and which KPI system will provide answers to the resulting management questions? Planning and prioritisation: in the planning stage, how can IT demand and supply be interlinked and how can the system be optimised to help achieve the company's goals?
  • Reporting and BI solutions: how can the required transparency be created regarding IT demand and supply – even across unit boundaries?

Our offering

CTcon will assist you in systematically resolving open IT management questions and in developing your IT controlling in a targeted fashion.

Your contact person

Axel Neumann-Giesen
Partner | Bonn | Germany
Get in touch
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