With digital transformation underway, technology is increasingly dominant in business environments. The adoption of technological tools allows companies to respond to market demands with agility, automating processes, reducing costs, and increasing innovation rates. For all this to be possible, it is important that there is an alignment of strategies, which can be provided by good IT governance.

Gradually, companies must meet the highest needs by quality in order to adapt to the new legislation of the sector and deliver a positive return on digital investments. In addition, there is the market pressure itself, with increasingly demanding customers and business partners and heavy competition, which encourages the company to innovate, expand production capacity and reduce the margin of error.

In this post, we will understand why good IT governance is so important and how it contributes to the company being able to meet increasingly demanding demands. Check it out!

What is IT governance?

IT governance is nothing more than a strategy applied to companies that want to align their IT policies —privacy, digital security, and virtual asset maintenance—with the demands of the business as a whole.

To achieve this goal, the IT department must focus routines on operational quality. When well structured, the result is that employees start working with more reliable, less vulnerable, and more performance systems.

It is in this process that it policies are aligned with the expectations of the management of the other sectors of the company. In this scenario, the IT department has the opportunity to transform its IT assets into tools that enable all company professionals to achieve their goals, expanding the competitive capacity of the company as a whole.

All this happens with the use of safety tools, the evaluation of the right indicators, and the aid of resource monitoring systems.

Why is having good IT governance so important?

Now that we know what IT governance is, let’s understand how important it is to businesses.

Help in optimizing resources

Regardless of size or segment, every company needs to have control of its resources, so that the production chain continues to flow with quality. With good IT governance, the company can count on the best tools, which allow the evaluation of available resources. This enables a more conscious use and better planning of punctual investments according to the company’s demands.

Contributes to risk reduction

When the company adopts IT governance, with good risk management, it has greater control over the vulnerabilities that the system presents and can more accurately predict the likely risks that may happen and hinder the progress of the business.

Risk management is responsible for constantly assessing vulnerabilities in relation to data security. A contingency plan must be put in place to deal with more critical services if there is a danger of failure so that there is rapid recovery and the least possible productive loss.

Allows better monitoring of metrics

For a long time, decisions in companies were made based on intuitions or scarce and accurate data. With Big Data and data structuring tools, decisions have been made based on well-defined metrics and according to the demands of each company, enabling the creation of a Data-Driven culture.

In addition, with properly established metrics and indicators, the company can work based on predictive analysis, which allows an evaluation of possible future events, enabling the anticipation of trends and market movements.

What is the difference between IT governance and IT management?

A lot of people think IT management and IT governance are synonymous, but that’s not true. As we have seen,  IT governance acts as a mechanism that establishes policies and regulations that allow greater direction and greater oversight of IT in a company, in addition to aligning the sector with the objectives of the corporation.

It management, on the other hand, is related to the day-to-day information technology of the company, focusing on the delivery of the best services and the best performance of the business. It is IT management that establishes processes, mobilizes the team in search of a specific objective, and monitors indicators to optimize processes.

As with governance, IT management should be done by the entire team and not just by the CIO.

Understand the role of IT governance

We can divide IT governance assignments into two topics: targeting IT processes and monitoring compliance with established rules.

Drive IT processes

It means that government must define how things work in the Information Technology sector. It is in governance that, for example, the entire company’s security policy and industry alignment plans are established with business strategies.

Monitor compliance with established rules

Directing without monitoring does not guarantee the alignment of strategies, so it is up to the governance to verify that its policies and standards are being followed correctly.

Understand the role of IT management

The main tasks of IT management can be separated into four topics, ranging from maintaining the performance of services to managing the team itself.

Preserve service performance

It is IT management that makes the decisions that will impact the delivery of services with the desired performance, always with agility and quality.

Promoting the company’s digital transformation

It is the role of IT management to identify and bring innovations that will generate value for the company, thus promoting digital transformation.

Maintain the satisfaction of users and customers of the services

Most agile IT methodologies work with constant deliveries and feedback to ensure that products or services meet the company’s demands.

Manage the team

In addition to choosing the most suitable professionals, IT management should keep them prepared, qualified and motivated.

We hope that after reading this post, you have understood what IT governance is and what its importance is to align the Information Technology sector with the demands of the company as a whole. In addition, we hope that the difference between IT management and IT governance has become clear, two terms that are constantly confused.

Did you like the article? So help us spread the word by sharing it on your social networks!