Real Business of IT: How CIOs Create and Communicate Value

by Richard Hunter

The four sources model: How IT improves business performance Optimizing: Processes internal to the company are improved or transformed through automation. Though optimizing is typically about incremental process improvements, it can also include actions that replace whole sets of applications and processes. Reshaping: Automation is used to change how customers and partners interact with the enterprise, how they work with the enterprise’s products and services, or the levels and kinds of service provided. These may be large, such as integrating the global supply chain, or smaller, such as providing customers with self-service features they formerly had to request through a salesperson or call center. Internal informing: Information is supplied to internal audiences to support decision making related to specific operational issues. Resulting performance improvements may be visible to external parties such as customers and suppliers, but the information itself typically is not. External informing: Information is supplied directly to external parties, such as customers and suppliers, to enhance or change the enterprise’s value proposition, relationships, or operations.