Deciding IT Priorities: Focus on Infrastructure Security

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Jun 11, 2024

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Deciding on IT Priorities

With the increase use of technology, in all aspects of life, the company’s IT department is becoming a strategic asset. This transformation forces the CEO and CIO to work together, in order to increase innovation and to implement successful strategies, to meet the needs of the future (Reiser & Short, 2014, p. 4). Therefore, when deciding on IT priorities, all options need to be considered carefully. Even though not all IT projects can be considered as producing seeable customer value and ROI, they are necessary, either for legal and security reasons, which are mandatory, or for creating future options for investments. Out of those, one of the most important issues that need to be focused on is infrastructure security, which is often ignored, due to the fact that it’s costly and seemed unnecessary to the business units of the company. CIOs might encounter resistance from the other business units to use some of their budget towards an area that is considered technical and doesn’t bring value for their units. According to Austin (2007) by formalize the process of prioritizing the resistance will decline. processes should have three phases. First, the process of deciding on the level of priorities needs to be made by all business units. Each unit will have a representative in the committee, who has decision-making authority. Second, the process needs to be completely transparent to all units. Everyone needs to know what the consequences will be for each path the committee decides to go with and what the process will be. Lastly, all units need to agree to stick to the agreed

decisions made, and minimized shifting people and money around before the projects are finished, to prevent waste and loss of resources. Keeping the infrastructure security up-to-date is essential to prevent security breach that will jeopardize the company’s customer data by being vulnerable to intrusions. Taking IVK as an example, by rejecting Davis proposal for security upgrades, the company customer’s data was compromised. Once word of the breach will come out the company reputation and credibility will be destroyed, and they might not be able to recover. In conclusion, the importance of the IT department and IT security is growing. It is the CEO and CIO duty to make sure that the IT department will get the necessary funds and resources to be compliance with mandatory updates, with emphasis on infrastructure security. Neglecting this area can cause irreparable damages to a company’s reputation and credibility.

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References: * Austin, R. D. (2007). Volkswagen of America: Managing IT Priorities. Harvard Business School , Case no. 606-003 . * Austin, R. D., Nolan, R. L., & O'Donnell, S. (2016). Volkswagen of America: Managing IT Priorities. The Adventures of An IT Leader , (MA: Harvard Business Press). 978-1-633-69167-4 * Reiser, S., & Short, A. (2014). A new era begins Redesigning the IT organization for a period of exponential change. IBM Institute for Business Value . https://doi.org/https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/LPZE9ZQ1

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