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After decades of deploying technologies to transform business processes throughout the enterprise, it is time for CIOs to invest in their own shops.

For many CIOs, operational efficiency is a touchy subject. IT organizations often have been so focused delivering the benefits of automation—performance, agility, uniformity, and scale—to line-of-business operations, they haven’t had the time or resources to apply that same effort to improving the underlying mechanics of IT.

The result is that some IT operations are rife with ad-hoc processes and outdated tools, and seldom follow standard IT best practices. Indeed, business unit leaders and the C-suite often can’t even list the services IT provides, much less quantify the value of IT spending. Left unchecked, this dynamic could make IT seem less relevant to the business over time, a troubling prospect for CIOs, especially given the growing appeal to business buyers of third-party IT services and cloud-based solutions.

The time has come for CIOs to get their own shops in order. IT organizations that want to increase operational efficiency and product and services quality should consider deploying systems and processes that allow them to run IT as a business. This also means rethinking the way solutions are built and managed, the way resources are deployed, and how accomplishments are measured and reported.

Moreover, it requires embracing—and integrating—tools and systems that can capture, report on, and manage IT’s full portfolio of projects, vendors, and resources across planning, implementation, and ongoing operations.

Transforming the business of IT will not be easy. No one vendor currently offers an ERP-like, all-in-one solution designed to meet IT’s operational needs. Some are making progress in integrating and filling the gaps in their existing product suites, but choices are limited and not yet integrated. Increasingly, CIOs are not waiting for the arrival of an ERP for IT solution. Rather, they are integrating IT support tools from different leading vendors, whether sourced internally, through an SaaS model, or from an external IT service provider with its own IT applications. This is a first step—albeit an essential one—toward transforming the business of IT and making the internal IT organization more relevant and valuable than ever.

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