IT can be to the bank what high-tech firms have been to the economy—a catalyst for change and an engine driving rapid growth. Of course, the opposite is also true: IT failures can seriously harm the bank. Why? Technology and information have become so important to how banks operate that even small changes can dramatically affect many areas of the business. This reality is reflected in the amount of IT assets accumulated over years due to large IT budgets, often second only to payroll in size. How many of these assets are still underleveraged, for whatever reason? What impact on results would an across-the-board 10 percent increase in return on IT assets (ROA) have?
Unfortunately, despite the important tasks at hand, IT has been limited in role as enabler and creative pathfinder to the business due to the following barriers:
- Effective alignment cannot succeed without a common language and unifying map.
- The difficulty of developing more credible, closed-loop measurements of IT's value to the company.
- Lack of good decision-making information for managing IT.
The Performance Manager for Banking book can help IT have more impact in the following key decision areas:
- Business value map: Where and how does IT drive business value?
- IT portfolio management: How are IT assets optimized for greatest ROA?
- Project/SDLC management: Are projects on time, on budget and on target?
- IT vendor management: Are vendor service levels and costs managed optimally?
- IT compliance management: Are IT risks and controls managed appropriately?
