CXO Advisor, has at one of South Africa’s largest banks, completed a project to redefine the way the bank's IT department categorises its budget and spend, using CXO Advisor’s 3Role Model™ framework. “We are very pleased with the ease in which our approach has been adopted and the positive response we have received from the client” says Craig Terblanche CXO Advisor’s partner responsible for client quality assurance.  

This new approach to IT budgeting and reporting is King III aligned and allows the IT department to communicate the bank's IT spend in business terminology that can be understood and acted upon by business management and the  board.  Terblanche goes on to explain, “One of the biggest issues facing governance in IT today is the lack of understanding between the Business and IT. Communications between the business management and IT management have traditionally been poor, but with the advent of King III, which has placed responsibility for IT firmly in the hands of the Board, this needs to be addressed!”

CXO Advisor has developed this budget approach as part of their overall IT governance framework to ensure that a common business language and understanding is developed between IT Management and the board. There are positive spin offs from the CXO Advisor approach, which enables Management not only get better understanding and control of their IT spend and forecasting, but also improves the understanding of IT value and IT risk, two long lasting IT conundrums.

“Although it is early days at the bank, we expect to see them using the approach for year on year analysis, analysis between divisions or even between operations in different countries”, Terblanche concludes.

“We are very excited by the positive acceptance in the market of the 3Role Model™ and believe King III is going to lead to better communications between IT and business, which in our opinion is long overdue.