Eight factors for IT success

First, what defines the best companies? To measure the best-run IT organizations, Alinean uses a metric called Return on IT (ROIT), which is a measure of a company's effectiveness divided by overall IT spending efficiency. ROIT does this by comparing the management team's ability to create shareholder value via Stern Stewart's well-respected Economic Value Add (EVA) metric, with running a tight ship (a frugal IT spend level). ROIT is stated as:

ROIT = EVA/IT spending

Where EVA = net profit &

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ndash; cost of capital (assets – liabilities) and, IT spending = formal IT spending + business unit IT spending

Here are the eight factors we found in researching these top companies that contribute most to IT success:

The bottom line

Although there is no one silver bullet practice that can drive IT success, several key attributes are more abundant in the leaders versus the laggards. Assessing your organizations and mapping against these success factors can help determine whether your group has the right stuff to succeed.

Tom Pisello is the CEO of Orlando, Fla.-based Alinean, a ROI consultancy that helps CIOs, consultants and vendors assess and articulate the business value of IT investments. He can be reached at tpisello@alinean.com.

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