What Distinguishes World-Class IT Organizations?

So you think your technology department has what it takes to be world class? Then you may want to compare how it stacks up against the following performance benchmark research from the Hackett Group. The accompanying report, "The World-Class Performance Advantage: Four Imperatives for Creating IT Agility in a Digital Age," defines "world-class" IT performance organizations as those that are more effective at reducing costs associated with tech service delivery and productivity than other companies, while more successfully enabling a digital transformation. Superior IT departments also more frequently enable their company to realize ROI objectives on projects, while devoting a greater number of tech resources to innovation and performance improvement, rather than just running the data center. In addition, they're better at streamlining the number of business apps deployed by users. "Leaders at world-class IT organizations understand that, while running core information systems and providing infrastructure efficiently remain critical capabilities, digital transformation is increasingly becoming a 'must have' to stay relevant in the business," said Scott Holland, practice leader of the IT Executive Advisory Program at the Hackett Group. "If they are not prepared to support this effort, companies won't wait. Rather than allow the internal IT organization to be a bottleneck to digital transformation execution, the business will look for outside partnerships, acquire technologies directly and develop technology management capabilities themselves." The research includes both IT budget and staffing trends among companies overall, and we've included those here. The findings are based on an analysis of results from recently published benchmarks, performance studies and other data from more than 100 companies.