Is Total Digitization Possible Through the Lens of It Governance

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Business leaders should be aware of all the new challenges, that will raise with the previous fact. Accordingly, they have to obtain the maximum business benefits by bushing to a total business digitization. However such approach should be adopted with an effective IT Governance framework which will support business goals and ensure the maximum value.

This research paper is made precisely to clarify all the concepts, types, and guidelines for business and IT people to execute and safely immigrate to total business digitization through a powerful alignment between business and IT.

Executive Summary

Technology is continually evolving, and it (technology) is the backbone and mainstay of every organization these days. Technology is being used to drive and achieve organizational goals, automate and improve processes, meet and delight customer’s needs, and also to govern organizational structures.

To employ technology for these, organizations must ensure (or be prepared for) a total digitization of their processes and information assets. An example of this is the “cashless” culture which all major societies are practicing. One can pay for products and services and transfer money without actually holding any cash.

This is made possible only through total digitization of processes.

There are different ways of achieving total digitization in an organization which ranges from (1) making “unconventional” components of the organization processes into a single unified platform which brings about synergy, reduction of operating expenses, and risks. (2) Having separate IT processes, independent of each other but linked to the enterprise’s goal flow which promotes process autonomy and isolating in case of failure and maintenance.

The two digitization methods stated above involves different frameworks to implement.

This research attempts to answer the question “ Is Total Digitization possible through the lens of IT governance ?”

With the help of in-depth literature review and case studies we identify how organizations aiming to achieve total digitization, do so with an effective framework for enterprise governance of IT such as COBIT 5. The results are clear successful applications of total digitization with the lens of enterprise governance of IT and IT governance.

The research also finds clear business benefits and a noticeable increase in business value and revenues by implementing COBIT 5 to achieve total digitization.

So far, we have studied FGB and ADNOC’s digitization processes and frameworks since we are focusing on the public companies in the MENA region.

FGB and ADNOC both Employed COBIT as their framework.

Our next work is to write, explain and support the research question using these two companies, and any additional one. Thus, our literature review and research is based on these companies and the COBIT framework.

Recommendations discussed include:

- Improving Total Digitization by implementation of Information Technology Governance·

- Improving business value and agility through COBIT as IT Governance Framework for implementing Total Digitization·

The research also raise the fact that some enterprises may use other IT governance frameworks like ITIL for instance to reach high levels of an effective Total Digitization.

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1. Introduction

It is no secret that the proliferation and impact of digital technologies has been substantial with mass adoption across the economy among consumers, businesses and governments alike. It is incumbent on businesses in the digital economy to succeed by digitizing rapidly, with investments across business processes, operations, labs, products, analytics, CAD, sensors and more. This is the world of total digitization where increased technology convergence and streams of data are leveraged across the value chain, producing better customer experience, fact based decision-making and innovation. As technology and digitization have become a strategic priority, CIOs are now put to the test of transforming their current operating models to deliver on the new demands of the digital economy (Woerner, McDonald & Weill, 2012).

To help bridge the knowledge gap for CIO’s we examine the research question: Is Total Digitization possible through the eyes of IT Governance?

Although traditionally CIOs are associated with being mere custodians of IT systems for enterprises, the drive toward digitization posit a few major challenges: the requirements of increasingly sophisticated technology, greater IT deliverance with reliability, security, timeliness as well better business engagement and oversight from senior management. The risks involved in these challenges can be mitigated by the CIO with well-articulated and effective IT governance (Andersson & Tuddenham, 2014).

We study in-depth what total digitization really is, how companies approach managing total digitization and to what varying degrees can companies digitize their functions and processes. We highlight several examples of companies exercising unique structures and mechanisms to managing total digitization and highlight strategic drivers that help deciding in which approach to take. We draw upon pressures that CIO’s face in their companies to meet the demands of total digitization and their increasing relevance as a participant in the executive committee and their role of bridging the gap between business and IT and aligning strategies.

We hypothesized that total digitization is possible but by using a single integrated malleable framework. We then propose that CIOs and companies may arrive at implementing new structures and mechanisms effectively with the help of IT governance and enterprise governance of IT with a framework of interest, COBIT. We draw upon the origins of COBIT, the five principles of COBIT and the benefits of using the framework. We test our proposition with case studies on public companies in the MENA region that have succeeded in their endeavors of governing their digital investments with the use of COBIT.

The main contributions of this research are two-fold. First it applies the current atmosphere of the move toward total digitization and the ways

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