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78 Enterprise Data Governance

4.4.1. The overlap of an Information System and IT

First of all, it is necessary to note that the value of IT is
unknown. It is perceived as a cost center. The management
school INSEAD notes this several times in its study on the
evaluation of IT assets: “Firms have managed their core
software assets not as an asset for value creation but as an
expense item to be minimized. This has to change.” Further,
“56% of all CIOs and CFOs feel that the financial value of
the organization’s core software assets were not or poorly
assessed as compared to other corporate assets such as
brands and intellectual property” [DUT 07].

At the same time, if IT systems disappeared, in an
imaginary scenario, it is plausible that a company would not
recover from it. All modern organizations undergo and
maintain an intimate overlap between IT and their business
processes. From there, we can consider, surprisingly, that IT
has an infinite value, since without it a company cannot
survive.

This reasoning holds no credibility with decision makers.
Management control has no place for assets with an infinite
value! In reality, it is not IT which is important but the
Information System that is executed through it. If the
Information System stops, then the company is in danger.
IT, from this point of view, is just a tool. This tool should be
reversible, almost a technical commodity, without value, just
as an electrical network brings energy. But we are very far
from this at present and this may never come to fruition.

This also fully affects companies that have strategies
based on software packages, because they undergo
cumbersome and costly IT customization projects. The
software package often becomes a piece that is unique and
non reversible, like traditional specific and bespoke
developments.