Definition of Enterpriser: Entrepreneur.  

Source “Enterprise”. Merriam-Webster dictionary.  

Definition of Entrepreneur: a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money. One who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. 

Source: "Entrepreneur". Merriam-Webster dictionary. 

“What is an enterpriser?

• Enterprisers believe the point of technology is to deliver customer-focused solutions and real business results.

• They are constantly working to balance conflicting needs: hard reality and innovative possibility, ease of use and effectiveness.

• Enterprisers believe that IT decisions will ultimately drive the success or failure of their enterprise.

• They believe collaborating with their peers moves their business forward.

• They build vision. They question everything. They take responsibility.”  

Source: "The Enterprisers Project". 

“ARE YOU AN ENTERPRISER?

The enterprise is ready to deliver more. More flexibility. More adaptability. More innovation. And today’s CIOs are helping unlock capabilities that will allow the enterprise to respond to business opportunities – and to create new ones. We call these CIOs "Enterprisers." And they are changing everything.” 

Source: "The Enterprisers Project". 

iTTi’s comment 

The CIO, as “The Enterprisers Project” proposes, would be natural champion of IT as drivers of innovation and boosting growth. But that implies counting on the rest of the organization, its objectives, strategy and policies. A sound starting approach would be to focus on the company’s governing body. If IT corporate governance is one of its explicit commitments then the technical capabilities provided by the IT will support the business capacities and outcomes, since the CIO's initiatives will be reinforced by organizational structures and investment in the company's portfolio. Top-down, you go from the company's objectives down to the IT objectives, which -when achieved- produce the company's objectives they are meant to serve.  

Related perspective(-s):

1.- iTTi Gloss: Corporate Governance of IT

2.- iTTi Gloss: CIO (Chief Information Officer) 

3.- Nueva sección, nuevos tiempos para el GCTI 

4.- Origen y evolución del concepto "Gobierno Corporativo de TI"

"CFOs are at the forefront of this exciting business transformation. Like any other business transformation, CFOs need to take a balanced approach that includes technology enablement for information delivery, risk management, internal controls, fraud/cyber security, and ethical concerns to help lead organizations successfully into the future.” 

Source: “CFOs Must Tackle Technology in the New Year”. Imaleadership, January 23, 2014. 

"Driven by the increased reliance on cloud and mobile technologies and Big Data, the CFTO has emerged as a valuable player in ensuring that businesses properly address the challenges and opportunities that come with these new technologies. To that end, this hybrid professional will likely be responsible for managing both finance and information technology and ensuring that organizations are properly managing Big Data assets to enhance profitability and economic value."

Source: “Rise of Chief Financial Technology Officer”. Kforce, January 28, 2014. 

"Trained to gather and analyze structured and unstructured data and to model and benchmark information, accountants and the finance function can provide a new and business-critical service to senior management and boards: making big data smaller, distilling information into the insights that improve decision making and transform organizations."

Source: “Big data: its power and perils”. ACCA and IMA by The Futures Company, November, 2013. 

iTTi’s comment

CFTO or CTFO? Shall the CFO have technological skills? Or it's the CTO / CIO who shall have financial skills?

The IT have pervaded all company realms and they are used as a tool or means to enable the the company to develop business. Does that mean that we should add a “T” or an “F” to all members of the C-suite? 

Wouldn't it be more adequate to have the Board make all corporate governance of IT decisions? Decisions leading to set organizational structures to implement the IT-enabled business strategy.

Both the CIO and the CFO are part of the company and they could be the ones implementing said strategy. Would the CIO have sufficient financial skills? Would the CFO have sufficient technological skills?

When the matter is to combine skills / competencies very apart from each other, what makes sense is a committee not a rare exceptionally gifted hybrid. 

Related perspective(-s):

1.- iTTi Gloss: Corporate Governance of IT

2.- iTTi Gloss: CIO (Chief Information Officer) 

3.- Nueva sección, nuevos tiempos para el GCTI 

4.- Origen y evolución del concepto "Gobierno Corporativo de TI"

“Risk appetite is the amount of risk, on a broad level, an organization is willing to accept in pursuit of value. Each organization pursues various objectives to add value and should broadly understand the risk it is willing to undertake in doing so.”

Source: Dr. Rittenberg, Larry; Martens, Frank. “Enterprise Risk Management — Understanding and Communicating Risk Appetite”. COSO, January 2012.

“An organisation's IT risk appetite is a subset of its overall enterprise risk appetite and therefore cannot be developed in isolation. It is ultimately the responsibility of the board of directors to define an organisation's risk appetite based on input and recommendations of senior management. […] For each risk element identified, the amount of risk that is acceptable for that element needs to be defined. For instance, because the business depends on IT for frequent enhancements to its customer-facing systems, it requires projects to be delivered on time and on budget.”

Source: Simmons, Craig. “Organisations must define their IT risk appetite and tolerance” . CIO UK, 5 July 2010.

Risk appetite (or its opposite 'risk aversion') is a key issue in business models, strategies, policies and plans. COSO II, among others, treats it in detail.

Quite often one's eyes are bigger than one's stomach! The governing body shall set and communicate a clear stance on corporate risk appetite and shall ensure -by supervision- that the right procedures are in place and are enforced and monitored. 

Related perspective(-s):

1.- iTTi Gloss: Corporate Governance of IT

2.- Origen y evolución del concepto "Gobierno Corporativo de TI"

3.- COBIT 5, a business framework?

4.- iTTi Gloss: Alignment

“Shadow IT is a term often used to describe IT systems and IT solutions built and used inside organizations without explicit organizational approval.” Source: Wikipedia.

“Stratecast broadly defines “shadow IT” as SaaS applications used by employees for business, which have not been approved by the IT department or obtained according to IT policies. The non-approved applications may be adopted by individual employees, or by an entire workgroup or department.” Source: Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan. “The Hidden Truth Behind Shadow”. McAfee, November 2013.

“... employees believe the productivity gains they realize by choosing their own SaaS applications offset any corporate risks – a perspective that is unlikely to be shared by corporate IT, security, and compliance officers, who have a broader purview and scope of responsibility.” Source: Lynda Stadtmueller. “Taking Shadow IT out of the Shadows”. Dec 03, 2013.

“Employees have been doing an end run around corporate IT and using shadow IT systems -that is, systems built and used in companies without organizational approval- for decades. Look no further than the volumes of company and customer data stored in Excel files scattered from here to kingdom come.” Source: Julia King. “The upside of shadow IT”. Computerworld, April 23 2012. 

Shadow IT -nothing new since enterprise IT appeared, some 75 years ago, as Julia King states- currently shines like a first magnitude star. 

If you have the budget, you may launch your application / service even if you don't have the right ideas or decision status, or you don't care, or even know, about issues such as integration, redundancy, resilience, compliance or security. 

On the other hand, if corporate IT doesn't provide the services you need, you are fully entitled to get them by yourself.

Potential win-win solution: adopt an enterprise IT governance and management framework, such as ISO 38500 and COBIT 5.

Related perspective(-s):

1.- iTTi Gloss: Corporate Governance of IT

2.- Origen y evolución del concepto "Gobierno Corporativo de TI"

3.- COBIT 5, a business framework?

4.- iTTi Gloss: Alignment

5.- iTTi Gloss: CIO  

“Chief information officer (CIO): The most senior official of the enterprise who is accountable for IT advocacy, aligning IT and business strategies, and planning, resourcing and managing the delivery of IT services, information and the deployment of associated human resources.” Source: ISACA. "Glossary", 2014.

“The approach to evaluating IT investment also begins to change as it becomes obvious that the contribution of IT cannot be meaningfully separated from the wider impacts of the strategic initiatives in which that investment is embedded.

… the CIO potentially becomes a more proactive 'business visionary.' … the CIO starts to be one of the main drivers of strategy by recognizing the emerging capabilities and applications of information technology, and arguing their significance to the business.”. Source: J.W.Ross and D.F.Feeny. “The Evolving Role of the CIO”. MIT, August 1999.

“The CIO’s role is rapidly evolving. We have characterized the CIOs who are leading the change as Reincarnate CIOs. Among other characteristics, the Reincarnate CIO is one who:

• Focuses as much on business as on technology, as much on strategy as on operations;

• Is as accountable to the CEO and business unit heads, with whom he or she works to shape strategy, as he or she is to the COO and CFO, with whom he or she works to increase operational efficiency and contain costs;

• Views IT more as a transformer of the business than an enabler of the business;

• Develops capabilities that create a career path extending beyond the IT function.”

Source: Khorana, Shami. “What Do CIOs Want?”. CIO INSIGHT, March, 8, 2013.  

The CIO is responsible for the execution of the IT strategy. MIT's Weill and Ross went further on naming her the SEO (Strategy Execution Officer), underlining that not al CIOs would become SEO.

Related perspective(-s):

1.- iTTi Gloss: Benefits Realization

2.- iTTi Gloss: Enterprise Architecture

3.- iTTi Gloss: Alignment

4.- iTTi Gloss: Accountability 

“One of the objectives of governance. The bringing about of new benefits for the enterprise, the maintenance and extension of existing forms of benefits, and the elimination of those initiatives and assets that are not creating sufficient value.” Source: ISACA Glossary.

“Benefits realization is a continuous process of envisioning results, implementing, checking intermediate results and dynamically adjusting the path leading from investments to business results. Benefits realization is a process that can and must be managed, just like any other business process.” Source: John Thorn. “The Information Paradox”, pag. 22. Fujitsu Consulting.

“The Principles of Realizing Benefits from IT:

• IT has no inherent value.

• Benefits arise when IT enables people do things differently.

• Only business managers and users can release business benefits.

• All IT projects have outcomes but not all outcomes are benefits.

• Benefits must be actively managed for.“

Source: Joe Peppard, John Ward, Elizabeth Daniel. Managing the Realization of Business Benefits from IT Investments. 

Benefits Realization of investments in business added value projects with a core IT component is THE key goal. Its processes should encompass all project-live activities, form cradle to tomb. These should include or take for granted proper risk management.

Related perspective(-s):

1.- iTTi Gloss: Enterprise Architecture

2.- iTTi Gloss: Alignment

3.- iTTi Gloss: Corporate Governance of IT

4.- iTTi Gloss: Accountability

5.- Origen y evolución del concepto "Gobierno Corporativo de TI"

  “Digitization is the process of converting information into a digital format. In this format, information is organized into discrete units of data (called bit s) that can be separately addressed (usually in multiple-bit groups called bytes). This is the binary data that computers and many devices with computing capacity (such as digital cameras and digital hearing aids) can process.”  

Source: WhatIs TechTarget.

“The business world is rapidly digitizing, connecting individuals, enterprises, devices, and governments, and enabling easier transactions, collaboration, and social interaction.”

Source: The Next Generation Enterprise: Thriving an increasingly Digital Ecosystem. By Peter Weill and Stephanie Woerner. MIT Center for Information System Research.

 “This is the world of total digitization: a multitude of digital devices and sensors creating streams of data, as well as any number of digital services and products for both internal and external use, distributed throughout the enterprise, and sometimes, but not always, connected. As the drive toward increased digitization continues, enterprises have to get a handle on this total digitization — and corporate CIOs have to step up to the challenge.”

Source: Is Your Organization Ready for Total Digitization? By Peter Weill and Stephanie Woerner. HBR Blog Network.

 “Consider the possibilities of a different definition of digitization as: The degree to which an enterprise’s products and service value and revenues are realized through technology.”

Source: A different definition of digitization is based on value and revenue not atoms and bits. By Mark P. McDonald. The Gartner Blog Network. 

The concept of digitization has evolved as digitalization technology did. In a first stage numeric data was coded as ones and zeroes for computation purposes. That transformation into 1's and 0's became more as applied to other kinds of data such as text, images and sounds, thus enlarging the panoply of possible digitizations. Later on, the concept of digitization spilled over from the data format to the data users. Nowadays, besides talking about “digital information” we talk about “digital entities”: society, company, city, etc. according to the level of their utilization of information and IT in pursuance of their objectives.

In the corporate realm there is an emergence of concepts like “Digital Company”, according to the way it uses IT; “Digital Director”; “Digital Officer”; etc.   

Related perspective(-s): 

1.- iTTi Gloss: Dark Data

2.- iTTi Gloss: Big Data

3.- iTTi Gloss: Social Business

4.- "Big Data": ¿un nuevo concepto? 

Gartner defines dark data as the information assets organizations collect, process and store during regular business activities, but generally fail to use for other purposes (for example, analytics, business relationships and direct monetizing). Similar to dark matter in physics, dark data often comprises most organizations’ universe of information assets. Thus, organizations often retain dark data for compliance purposes only. Storing and securing data typically incurs more expense (and sometimes greater risk) than value. 

Source: Gartner IT Glossary 

In fact, it might be more properly termed «dusty data»”. It’s that neglected data that accumulates in log files and archives that nobody knows what to do with. Although it never sees the light of day, no one feels comfortable destroying it because it might prove useful someday.

Source: “What Is Dark Data?”. Elizabeth Gaines. SAP-BUSINESS INNOVATION. 10/2012.

Dark data is usually defined as data that is kept “just in case” but hasn’t (so far) found a proper usage, or can be harvested and leveraged beyond its primary (intended) usage.

Source: IT Briefcase. 04/2013.

The issue of Dark Data (DD) -or perhaps better “Data in the Darkness”- is really important, is getting increasing attention (see as an example, “Dealing with Information Growth and Dark Data – Six Practical Steps”) and deserves further research. The definitions above, combined, might result in the following key ideas: 

• DD are Big Data resulting from logs and archives nobody knows yet what to do with.

• DD produce cost (storing and securing) and risks (IP piracy).

• They are kept, in certain cases, for compliance purposes; usually well beyond the legal retention periods.

• Destroying them might prove difficult -if not impossible- given the probably high number of copies (e.g.: for backups).

• When analytics (BI, data mining) become more cost effective DD might prove useful.

• In any case, organizations with processes in COBIT 5 PAM (based on ISO/IEC 15504-2) Level 4 (Predictable Process) or Level 5 (Optimizing Process) are currently in the need to exploit some DD with the appropriate analytic tools. 

Related perspective(-s): 

1.- iTTi Gloss: Big Data

2.- iTTi Gloss: Social Business

3.- "Big Data": ¿un nuevo concepto?

Enterprise Architecture. Description of the fundamental underlying design of the components of the business system, or of one element of the business system (e.g., technology), the relationships among them, and the manner in which they support enterprise objectives.

From ISACA Glossary.

The enterprise Architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure, reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the conpany's operting model.

From “Enterprise Architecture as Strategy”. Ross, Weill and Robertson. Harvard Business School Press. 1992. 

La Arquitectura de Empresa se podría definir como la forma de racionalizar y formalizar los procesos y sus relaciones, recursos y objetivos, dentro de una organización.

De “Arquitectura de Empresa. Mecanismo para el gobierno corporativo de TI”. Cuadernos de ISACA-Madrid. Nº 2. 2010.

Government Enterprise IT (GEIT) and Enterprise Architecture (EA) GEIT are related and intertwined concepts. Understanding EA concepts is important for analyzing and anticipating the interdependencies between GEIT and EA adoptions in the organization.

Related perspective(-s):

1.- iTTi Gloss: Alignment

2.- iTTi Gloss: Corporate Governance of IT

3.- iTTi Gloss: Accountability

4.- Origen y evolución del concepto "Gobierno Corporativo de TI"

A software package that automatically plays, displays or downloads advertising material to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used. 

From ISACA Glossary 

Adware is free software that is supported by advertisements. Common adware programs are toolbars that sit on your desktop or work in conjunction with your Web browser. 

From TechTerms 

Adware, or advertising-supported software, is any software package which automatically renders advertisements in order to generate revenue for its author. 

From Wikipedia 

Adware permeates vary many instances of application SW and SaaS (SW as a Service) and accordingly our own lives. Unless voluntarily installed or tolerated it is considered malware of diverse or unknown severity ranging from a nuisance or pain in the neck to spyware or other sorts of Trojans. 

It is important that adware features are scrutinized in detail and published so that users are aware of the toll they pay and the exposures to which they are subject. No need to say that stealth malware may be even worse.