Traditional IT measurements, such as system availability, throughput and performance, are valuable for the ongoing operations of IT systems. However, they don’t provide a complete picture of the value of IT to an enterprise’s business objectives.

Midsize business (MSB) IS organizations can use technology to drive business value by leveraging real-time enterprise technologies, such as business analytics, total value of opportunity, process event management and performance dashboards. Used together, they enable CEOs, CFOs and other business executives to monitor the status of critical enterprise processes and to identify opportunities and potential challenges sooner in the business cycle.

Additionally, faced with challenges that include delivering improved customer service and developing closer business partnerships and supplier interactions, MSBs will have to begin strategically utilizing integration technology to improve their connectivity and information processing capabilities with key business partners. Business process management (BPM) is one approach MSBs can take to describe process-level integration will occur across different systems and applications within and outside the enterprise.

Another area where MSBs can harness technology to create business value is by creating an IT architecture based on standards-based technologies to improve business adaptability and agility. MSBs that remain in rigid, constrained architectures will not keep up with future demands such adding, changing and extending business processes to address new opportunities.

Learn more on how to deliver IT value to your midsize business at Midsize Enterprise Summit. Click here to qualify to attend as our guest.

Reference
Research Note
SMB Executive Concerns: Does IT Boost Performance?
Published: November 8, 2002
Authors: M. Yamamoto Krammer, J. Browning, R. Anderson, R. Brown