Paper Example on IT Governance: A Key to Success in Online Retail Business

Introduction

In modern days of online retail business, IT governance serves a central role in ensuring that all operations within the company to external components work effectively. As a senior IT manager at Amazon.com, IT governance has been of grate deal and requires more attention not only from the IT department but also from the rest of the management components in the company (Rivet, 2017). IT governance policies need to be adhered to to ensure excellent performance. Implementation of IT governance policies is procedural and resource-demanding. Therefore for Amazon to succeed in the implementation process, all IT staff members and the rest of the management in the department must play their specified roles and, more importantly, understand that all the IT designs and redesigning of the programs are targeted to achieve organization's objectives (Altemimi & Zakaria 2015) IT governance remains one of the core agendas in the day to day plans for most of the IT managers. In amazon, IT governance implementation has taken a unique approach to ensure success. This article, therefore, describes how to implement IT governance policies at Amazon.com.

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At Amazon, IT governance has always been evolving with many changes designed to meet the contemporary developments in technology, increasing knowledge of IT, and market demands such as competition and government policies. As an IT manager in the IT department, IT governance has to be carried out based on the following aspects:

• The Organization's IT resources and facilities, they must be used responsibly to ensure success
• Proper management of the risks
• IT and other related factors should support the objectives of the company

Implementing appropriate governance, IT experts, and the rest of the members of the management should stand responsible and execute all process effectively (Bianchi & Sousa, 2016). To achieve optimal outcomes from the implementation of the policies, the IT department must be accountable for the following aspects of the business.

• Create awareness and communicate IT vision to all stakeholders
• Establish strategies that support the success of the existing and future business strategies
• Recommend and make suggestions about IT standards and architecture
• Recommend practical governance tools and develop best practices.

Formal IT governance is necessary for the company to ensure the successful implementation of IT governance policies. Information and business objective are the key elements to consider. As the manager, it would is vital to ensure that IT governance basics such as to ensure that IT facilities and information contained in such resources are deployed the right way and meet the objectives of the company (Bianchi & Sousa, 2016). There are various IT governance policies for Amazon.com intends to implement, using the above concepts of implementation; we would ensure positive outcomes. These policies ad ways of implementing each of them are as follows:

1. IT & Business Alignment

It is our role as IT managers and IT experts to ensure that IT governance aligns with business objectives. It is the most considerate policy that requires more attention, as there are many challenges involved in this process. It is crucial to ensure that IT objectives and the Organization's objectives alight together and function harmoniously to fulfill the requirements of the company (Kantor & Streitfeld 2015). It can be achieved through system upgrades and making IT process more accessible and useful. The following frameworks can be used to achieve policy implementation:

• Establish and implement several IT scorecards that have clear definitions of KPIs having well identified the link between the IT objectives and Organization's objectives in general
• Establish a well-defined business architecture that provides a laydown foundation of IT operations to be developed and business strategies before initiating IT and business alignment policy
• Establishment of IT Demand Management Practice (IDMP) that defines business management and its relationship with IT.

2. IT Value Delivery

One of the policies of IT governance is to ensure that all the IT resources, investments, and other related projects such as cloud computing project function effectively and provide value and expected financial as well as non-financial outcomes for the company (Kantor & Streitfeld 2015). To implement the policy, the following techniques are used:

• Establishing a seamless IT budgeting approaches like running the budget and zero-based budgeting
• Creating an IT portfolio supervision practice that helps to define the relevant and achievable IT projects that the company should invest in.
• We are tracking and monitoring of IT financial and data metrics like NPV, Payback, Cost ratio, RIO, IRR, etc.

3. IT Performance Management

As a senior IT manager is it is important to consider performance management by monitoring IT progress periodically while taking necessary correctional operations on a timely basis. Here are the techniques that are used at the management level to ensure the successful implementation of IT governance.

• Develop and implement IT management and performance standards while monitoring the same periodically
• Creating and implementing of IT governance audits such as IT system performance reviews and operational audits
• Establishing IT performance and risk assessment to help in identifying potentials risks as a result of poor performance or completion
• Regularly conduct meeting with the IT committee to analyses performance issues and recommendations for necessary changes (Alreemy et al. 2016).

4. IT Resource Management

The IT department is responsible for managing different IT facilities and resources like computer systems, vendors, and staff members. Since amazon.com is an online retailer, these policies require the management to be keen to implement effectively. It is crucial to ensure that all the resources and facilities are used correctly. The following approaches that are used to implement the process:

• Review of the use of IT assets
• Review of vendors and contracts performance
• Develop an IT asset management program
• Technological upgrade done periodically

References

Alreemy, Z., Chang, V., Walters, R., & Wills, G. (2016). Critical success factors (CSFs) for information technology governance (ITG). International Journal of Information Management, 36(6), 907-916.

Altemimi, M. A. H., & Zakaria, M. S. (2015, December). Developing factors for effective IT governance mechanisms. In 2015 9th Malaysian Software Engineering Conference (MySEC) (pp. 245-251). IEEE.

Bianchi, I. S., & Sousa, R. D. (2016). IT Governance mechanisms in higher education. Procedia Computer Science, 100, 941-946.

Kantor, J., & Streitfeld, D. (2015). Inside Amazon: Wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace. The New York Times, 15, Q1.

Rivet, D. J. (2017). Amazon's Superior Innovation: A Study of Amazon's corporate structure, CEO, and reasons behind why it has become the most innovative company in today's market.