The availability and quality of information in an enterprise depend on its IT infrastructure and implementation strategy. A cost-effective IT infrastructure that focuses on a set of well-defined objectives of the IT policy can serve the broad objective of managerial effectiveness. This article defines the important objectives of IT policy for a modern enterprise.

Objectives of IT Policy

The following are some of the important objectives of IT policy for a modern enterprise:

  1. Enabling users to identify opportunities, improve performance, and understand the business environment through IT infrastructure.
  2. Developing and preserving information as a corporate resource and offering infrastructure for users to access complete, concise, and timely information.

Strategies to Achieve the Objectives

To achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the IT policy should focus on the following strategies:

  • Developing user-friendly, high business value, and high technological impact applications with the help of proper IT planning.
  • Specifying a common interface to applications to ensure a high degree of consistency from one application to the next.
  • Providing controlled and quick exchange of information in diverse forms at different locations.
  • Ensuring effective control and maintenance of IT infrastructure, including defining a system of access to applications and services, security procedures, etc.
  • Actively searching and identifying information technologies that will give a strategic advantage to the enterprise and seeking opportunities to acquire such technologies that create competitive barriers in marketing, procurement, production, and manpower management.
  • Designing and developing a comprehensive plan for IT infrastructure that may serve as a guide for the future direction of application development efforts. This may include a proper system of regular evaluation of existing and proposed applications in terms of their contribution to the success of the enterprise.

Implementation and Decision Making

Proper planning and commitment on the part of the management at various levels are crucial for achieving the objectives of IT policy. The advancement of IT has increased the expectations of management and made technologies more complex. Therefore, the decision-making process has to shift from ad-hoc allocation of a part of investment budget to IT, to a deliberate, well-drawn IT plan, based on the IT vision of the enterprise.

The value of each IT investment proposal should be assessed in terms of business performance, and a businesslike approach towards business information systems should be adopted.

Conclusion

Information technology has to take up the challenge posed by the dynamics of business and reorient itself to help a manager cope up with the complex problems of the changing business scenario. The objectives of IT policy for a modern enterprise can be achieved by following the strategies mentioned above with proper planning and commitment.

Objectives of IT Policy for Effective Enterprise Management
1. To enable users to identify opportunities, improve performance, and understand the business environment through IT infrastructure.
2. To develop and preserve information as a corporate resource and offer infrastructure for users to access complete, concise, and timely information.
Table 1:Objectives of IT Policy for Effective Enterprise Management
Strategies to Achieve the Objectives
1. Developing user-friendly, high business value, and high technological impact applications with the help of proper IT planning.
2. Specifying a common interface to applications to ensure a high degree of consistency from one application to the next.
3. Providing controlled and quick exchange of information in diverse forms at different locations.
4. Ensuring effective control and maintenance of IT infrastructure, including defining a system of access to applications and services, security procedures, etc.
5. Actively searching and identifying information technologies that will give a strategic advantage to the enterprise and seeking opportunities to acquire such technologies that create competitive barriers in marketing, procurement, production, and manpower management.
6. Designing and developing a comprehensive plan for IT infrastructure
Table 2: Strategies to Achieve the Objectives:

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Information Technology