IVI Tools Work Report US CIOs

CIOs Tell Conference That IVI Tools Helped Them To Measure Value And Cut Costs

Intel Global Director of IT Innovation, Professor Martin Curley has predicted that tools developed in Ireland are likely to become global standards for making IT investment and operating decisions.

Professor Curley was speaking in Boston at the annual North American Conference of the Innovation Value Institute.

The IVI was established in 2006 as a joint venture between Intel, The Boston Consulting Group, and the National University of Ireland Maynooth to tackle the problem of otherwise highly sophisticated companies ‘shooting in the dark' on their IT investment decisions.

With worldwide annual spend on ICT estimated at $1.6 trillion, leading companies in every business sector had until recently few tools available to help them gauge the return on investment needed to decide whether buying IT systems was worthwhile.

IVI was named as a Centre of Excellence by the Irish Government in 2009, an d IVI members are now firmly putting into practice the tools and methods devised during research with quantifiable results.

IVI is now an international open-forum learning consortium that has attracted more than 40 blue chip members including Microsoft, Chevron, BP, Ernst & Young, SAP and Axa. The  IVI announcedat the condference that  that the US Department of Homeland Security has also joined the consortium. By 2015 IVI expects that over two-thirds of all Fortune 500 companies will be using IT-CMF as the core framework to manage their IT capability.


Professor Curley said: "The results which have been coming back from the field over the past six months demonstrate that IT-CMF is proving itself in a very real way in the business world. The need to prove value from IT investment is now very urgent but we are trying to catch up on four decades of paying little attention to the issue. This unique cross-industry collaboration process at IVI is providing the road map to secure IT's future as a value driver in business".

Gregg Wyant, Intel's IT CTO, who spoke at the conference, said that the IT-CMF has proved a key tool to unlocking the value of IT spend in Intel. "Using IT-CMF helped guide us to a 25% improvement in IT effectiveness, while at the same time reducing spend by 10%. In addition, a recent IT-CMF assessment has demonstrated a 19% improvement in Enterprise Architecture Management in just one year - allowing IT solutions to better meet the needs of Intel's business".


Peter Forte, CIO of Analog Devices Inc, who attended the IVI conference in Boston, said "Analog is very interested in using the IT-CMF to carry out an in-depth assessment of our IT function. Of particular value is the ability to benchmark, identify gaps and use the assessment to prioritize future IT investment".

Peter Breunig, Chief Technology Officer, Chevron said: "Chevron has found value in the way IVI allows us to assess, measure and manage critical areas including Enterprise Architecture and Innovation Management. With IT-CMF's 36 Critical Process framework we have found what I believe is a unifying framework for IT throughout Chevron", he said.


Mike Bevil, Manager of MRL IT Innovation, Merck, said the company was using IT-CMF to develop a long term plan to improve innovation capability. "We found through an analysis of 14 processes that we were at a maturity level of 2, which signified only ‘Sporadic Innovation'. Our plan will see us greatly improve maturity over the next 18 months, allowing us to bring more innovation projects through to pilot stage. Already, in Phase One we have seen efficiency savings of 20% in our experiment execution budget", he said.


Vincenzo Marchese, Group Enterprise Architect, BP, said that BP has carried out two IT-CMF assessments in Enterprise Architecture Management over the last two years and has recorded significant improvements in this area. "Our maturity has risen to a level 3 in most areas in 2009 (from an overall level 2 in 2008), and in many pockets we have reached level 4. But more importantly we have learned that training and certifying our people in an architecture framework significantly has improved the quality and consistency of our work", he said.


Ralf Dreischmeier, Partner and Managing Director of The Boston Consulting Group said:"IT has been viewed for too long as a cost item by business. It was expected to perform but could not quantify its contribution. This in turn had undermined the role of the CIO at board level. Through IT-CMF, companies can show real measurable return for their IT investments, which are typically up to five per cent of all revenues. That should always have been important, but is especially vital now in a recessionary climate. It is companies which can innovate, and prove their innovation which will succeed. IT-CMF is an important enabler of this",

President of National University of Ireland Maynooth Professor John Hughes said "The open innovation which is at the core of IT-CMF will be the real driver of learning and development for the 21st Century. The IT-CMF is playing a vital role in professionalizing the IT industry and will be to IT standards what the ISO system is to quality standards".


Over 250 IT Professionals from 20 countries have already used the IT-CMF. IVI is now working towards creating a global accreditation standard for IT management..Results reported by members employing IT-CMF practises include:

•  Merck  reported an 8% saving in total operating budget for Technology Innovation and 20% saving on experiments 
•  Intel reported a 25% improvement in IT capability, for 10% reduced spend
•  Chevron reported significant success with initial applications led to decision to use IT-CMF's 36 process framework to organize and unify the IT function across corporate group
•  Axa-Tech noted a 96% reduction in set-up working time for new servers; and -81% (-63%) reduction in total cycle time for set-up of virtual  and physical servers

The driving force behind the establishment of IVI was the need to develop a roadmap to allow organizations assess and benchmark their IT maturity level and help them make effective decisions regarding IT investment with confidence professionalize the IT industry.


 The IT Capability Maturity Framework
The IT-CMF is a framework to evaluate an organization's IT maturity level, benchmark with industry peers and best practice, and identify a roadmap for improvement.

How does it Work?
The IT-CMF is a five stage model  used to organize, measure and structure a framework for mapping IT improvementin an organisation. The five levels consist of 1. Initial - no formal processes, ad-hoc
2. Basic - delivering basic service or function
3. Intermediate - intermediate level of process sophistication
4. Advanced - delivering an advanced level of output
5. Optimizing - all critical processes are optimized


To fully implement the IT-CMF an organisation must establish which level of maturity they are currently operating at by measuring themselves over the four macro processes. The four foundational macro processes are:

1. Managing IT like a Business - shifting the focus from technology and production to a focus on customers and services

2. Managing the IT Budget - investing in innovative IT solutions that deliver better value and performance

3. Managing the IT Capability - managing IT assets throughout the value chain and developing core competencies

4. Managing IT for Business Value - linking IT investments to overall business benefits

In total, the four macro processes of IT-CMF are subdivided into 36 critical processes to cover all activities in an IT department. An assessment of an IT organization's maturity across these 36 processes, together with comparisons to industry benchmarks and best practices is then given to the CIO.

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