Eyre cited a Gartner study conducted in 2002, showing that 20 per cent of all expenditure on IT was wasted, representing globally an annual value of US$600 billion.

"Boards and senior management must be held accountable for all major IT decisions and should ensure that their IT investments are business enablers rather than just a mere implementation of a new solution," Eyre told financial services and government executives in a presentation on the importance of practising effective IT governance, at a recent luncheon held at the Hilton Hotel in Barbados.

"Managing IT-enabled business investments within an effective governance framework will provide significant opportunities for companies to create value and grow their revenues," he argued.  "It is very critical that effective governance starts with leadership, commitment and support at the board and director levels in an organisation.  This leadership by itself is not enough without a comprehensive framework built on best practices and other guidance materials to assist executives in making IT-enabled business investments and decisions, Eyre added.  "Without effective governance and good management, investments in ICT will not deliver the value expected or maximise its full business benefit," he said.

Up until recent times, there has been no clear framework to report on, monitor and measure the potential success or failures of IT investments.  During April 2006, the IT Governance Institute released the first documents of their VAL IT (achieving the value from IT), a global initiative aimed at responding to the need for organisations to optimise real value from IT investments and address key management practices for three processes: Value Governance, Portfolio Management and Investment Management.  Fujitsu has played a leading global role in this initiative and contributed significantly to the VAL IT framework and management practices.

Fujitsu is currently leading several IT Governance-related initiatives within its client base across the Caribbean region.  These include awareness and educational programmes targeted at the director and executive management levels and ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) training at the IT management levels.

Internally, Fujitsu has adopted ITIL to establish a set of process-based best practices for IT services management and delivery that promotes a quality approach to achieving business effectiveness and efficiency.

"Our adoption of ITIL standards in our services delivery will enable us to satisfy our customers' business requirements with responsiveness and greater agility, at any given time," said Frances Correia, EVP, Services for Fujitsu in the Caribbean.

"Customers will benefit from predictable service management costs, reliability and more cost-effective services under a stipulated Services Level Agreement (SLA)."

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