Status of IT governance in South Africa : a comparative view

Abstract

IT governance has emerged as a fundamental business imperative because of its strategic role in realising business value. This comes from the fact that IT in many organisations has grown to become one of the most valuable assets and major driver of business success and revenue. As a result, executives in many organisations have come to realise that IT needs to be governed if business success and revenue are to be achieved. This article seeks to compare the status of IT governance in South Africa as reported by the ITWeb in their IT governance survey with the global IT governance status report released by the IT governance Institute (ITGI). The intention is to show whether South Africa is in line with the rest of the world or if it is ahead or behind in terms of IT governance.In order to compare the two surveys, results of the 2006 ITGI global report was collected including their very first results which came out in 2003. These were compared to check for progress. Similarly, ITWeb results of 2006 were collected together with the previous survey results of 2005 and compared against each other to see which practises had improved or weakened. Finally the ITGI global results were compared and contrasted to the ITWeb results to see if the local results were out of synchronisation or in line with the global results.The results indicate that overall South Africa is in line with the rest of the world in terms of IT governance although there are some practices where catch up is necessary.