How Business Drives IT Goals

Understanding
How Business Goals
Drive IT Goals
Executive Briefing

Understanding How Business Goals Drive IT Goals
IT Governance Institute®
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their IT governance responsibilities and IT professionals deliver value-adding services.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
ITGI wishes to recognise:
The Researchers
Wim Van Grembergen, Ph.D., University of Antwerp Management School, and IT Alignment and Governance Research Institute, Belgium
Steven De Haes, Ph.D., University of Antwerp Management School, and IT Alignment and Governance Research Institute, Belgium
Hilde Van Brempt, University of Antwerp Management School, and IT Alignment and Governance Research Institute, Belgium
ITGI Board of Trustees
Lynn Lawton, CISA, FBCS, FCA, FIIA, KPMG LLP, UK, International President
George Ataya, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, CISSP, ICT Control SA, Belgium, Vice President
Yonosuke Harada, CISA, CISM, CAIS, InfoCom Research Inc., Japan, Vice President
Howard Nicholson, CISA, CGEIT, City of Salisbury, Australia, Vice President
Jose Angel Pena Ibarra, CGEIT, Consultoria en Comunicaciones e Info., SA & CV, Mexico, Vice President
Robert E. Stroud, CA Inc., USA, Vice President
Kenneth L. Vander Wal, CISA, CPA, Ernst & Young LLP (retired), USA, Vice President
Frank Yam, CISA, FHKCS, FHKIoD, CIA, CCP, CFE, CFSA, FFA, Focus Strategic Group, Hong Kong, Vice President
Marios Damianides, CISA, CISM, CA, CPA, Ernst & Young LLP, USA, Past International President
Everett C. Johnson, CPA, Deloitte & Touche LLP (retired), USA, Past International President
IT Governance Committee
Tony Hayes, FCPA, Queensland Government, Australia, Chair
Sushil Chatterji, Edutech Enterprises, Singapore
Kyung,Tae Hwang, CISA, Dongguk University, Korea
John W. Lainhart IV, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, IBM Business Consulting Services, USA
Hugh Penri-Williams, CISA, CISM, CCSA, CIA, Adcatel, France
Eddy Schuermans, CISA, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Belgium
Gustavo Adolfo Solis Montes, CISA, CISM, Grupo Cynthus, Mexico
Robert E. Stroud, CA Inc., USA
John Thorp, CMC, I.S.P., The Thorp Network Inc., Canada
Wim Van Grembergen, Ph.D., University of Antwerp Management School, and IT Alignment and Governance Research Institute, Belgium
COBIT Steering Committee
Robert E. Stroud, CA Inc., USA, Chair
Gary S. Baker, CA, Deloitte & Touche, Canada
Rafael Eduardo Fabius, CISA, Republica AFAP SA, Uruguay
Erik Guldentops, CISA, CISM, University of Antwerp Management School, Belgium
Jimmy Heschl, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, KPMG, Austria
Debbie A. Lew, CISA, Ernst & Young LLP, USA
Greta Volders, Voquals, Belgium
3© 2 0 0 8 I T G O V E R N A N C E I N S T I T U T E . A L L R I G H T S R E S E R V E D .

Acknowledgements cont.
ITGI Affiliates and Sponsors
ISACA chapters
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ASIS International
The Center for Internet Security
Commonwealth Association for Corporate Governance Inc.
FIDA Inform
Information Security Forum
Information Systems Security Association
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Institute of Management Accountants Inc.
ISACA
ITGI Japan
Norwich University
Socitm Performance Management Group
Solvay Business School
University of Antwerp Management School
Aldion Consulting Pte. Ltd.
Analytix Holdings Pty. Ltd.
BWise B.V.
CA Inc.
Consult2Comply
Hewlett-Packard
IBM
ITpreneurs Nederlands B.V.
LogLogic Inc.
Phoenix Business and Systems Process Inc.
Project Rx Inc.
Symantec Corporation
TruArx Inc.
Wolcott Group LLC
World Pass IT Solutions
The researchers wish to recognise:
This research project was commissioned by the IT Governance Institute and was performed by the IT Alignment and Governance
Research Institute of the University of Antwerp Management School (UAMS) in Belgium. ITGI also provided the necessary contact
information from the ISACA member database for building the expert team. We are grateful to the valuable support of the COBIT
Steering Committee and would like to thank Erik Guldentops, who initiated this research and provided us with many ideas on IT
governance. Thanks also go the expert team members for taking the time during several rounds to provide us valuable answers and
feedback on the questionnaires.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................................................................................6
Research Background......................................................................................................................................................................................7
General Findings ..............................................................................................................................................................................................8
Sector-specific Findings.................................................................................................................................................................................12
Full Research Report Available ....................................................................................................................................................................17
List of Figures.................................................................................................................................................................................................18

Introduction
In today’s complex and constantly changing business world, IT’s alignment to the business and IT governance are high on the agenda
of executive management. Strategic planning based on the alignment of IT goals to business goals is a key component in business/
IT alignment. It is important that an enterprise start with a clear view of its mission and a thorough definition of its supporting strategy
and business goals. This then needs to be translated into goals for the IT department, which are the basis for the IT strategy. Finally, the
supporting IT processes must be carefully planned to translate the IT strategy into action. For these planning efforts, enterprises may be
looking for guidance to identify the set of important business goals and IT goals, and how they interrelate.
Research into this subject by the IT Governance Institute was discussed in previous Information Systems Control Journal articles1
and
led to the publication of a set of generally applicable business goals for IT and associated IT goals in COBIT®
.2
Extensive follow-up
research was performed to gain more insight into this set of business and IT goals and their linkage. This white paper presents the main
results of the follow-up research project in which a group of experts in different sectors were asked to validate, prioritise and link a set of
business goals and IT goals. This research has also resulted in a significant improvement of the business goals for IT and associated
IT goals in COBIT®
4.1. In addition to this white paper, a full research report that includes all of the detailed data is available
at www.itgi.org.
1
Van Grembergen, W.; S. De Haes; J. Moons; ‘IT Governance: Linking Business Goals to IT Goals and COBIT Processes’, Information Systems Control Journal, vol. 4,
2005 and Van Grembergen, W.; S. De Haes; H. Van Brempt; ‘How Does the Business Drive IT? Identifying, Prioritising and Linking Business and IT Goals’, Information
Systems Control Journal, vol. 6, 2007
2
IT Governance Institute, Control Objectives for Information and related Technologies (COBIT), USA, 1996-2008, www.itgi.org

Research Background
Research Background
This research project follows up on the findings of a pilot study that resulted in a list of 20 generic business goals and a list of 28 generic
IT goals, first published in COBIT 4.0. The objectives of the research presented in this white paper are to:
• Validate these lists for completeness, consistency and clarity
• Gain more insight into goals and priorities for different sectors
• Examine the relationship between IT goals and business goals
In practice, every enterprise has its own distinct sets of business and IT goals. Priorities within these sets will differ depending on a
variety of internal and external factors such as company size, market position, degree of IT dependency, industry and geography. This
project chose an industry approach and started with a pilot in the financial sector that was then replicated for four other sectors:
• Manufacturing and pharmaceuticals
• IT professional services, telecommunications and media
• Government, utilities (e.g., energy, oil and gas) and healthcare
• Retail, distribution and transportation
For the prioritisation and linking of the goals, a Delphi method was used. This method is based on a structured process for collecting
and distilling knowledge from a group of experts by means of several feedback rounds. For this study, a team of experts was asked to
prioritise a list of business and IT goals by using a ranking technique, and the averaged results were returned to them. Different interview
rounds were performed to achieve consensus amongst the experts on the important goals and how the business goals are linked to the
IT goals.
The ISACA member database was used as a major source to identify subject experts. In total, 158 business and IT professionals, either
managers or auditors, participated from enterprises with more than 150 employees. All five industry sectors were represented. One of the
assumptions was that experts holding a management or auditing position have sufficient knowledge of both IT and business goals.
Figure 1 presents the expert team’s composition by sector and geographic location.
Retail, Distribution
and Transportation: 16
Government,
Utilities and
Healthcare: 39
IT Professional
Services, Telecommunications
and Media: 40
Financial: 38
Manufacturing and
Pharmaceuticals: 25
Europe: 37
Latin America: 3Australia: 7
Middle East: 18
Asia: 28
Africa: 14
North
America: 51
Expert Team by Sector
Total number of subject experts: 158
Expert Team by Geographic Location
Figure 1—Expert Team Composition

General Findings
The research reported in this white paper was executed in enterprises of different industries, sizes and geographic locations. This section
discusses some general findings that are relevant to the whole data set.
Identifying and Validating Business and IT Goals
During the research, the original list of IT and business goals (as published in COBIT 4.0) was validated and reviewed multiple times, and
evolved to a generic list of 17 (IT-related) business goals and 18 IT goals. Overlap, inconsistencies and ambiguities amongst the different
goal definitions were reduced to a minimum. The goals turned out to be generically defined and applicable across all sectors.
Figure 2 presents the final list of business and IT goals, categorised by their corresponding balanced scorecard (BSC) perspectives. The
generically defined goals provide a guideline for companies to help them identify their set of important business and IT goals. In
practice, enterprises will need to develop their own subset, but they can do that efficiently by:
• Starting from these generic business and IT goals
• Updating these goals for enterprise specifics (strategy, infrastructure, etc.)
• Adding measures to track goal achievement
Documenting the Top 10 Business and IT Goals
The lists of business and IT goals have been prioritised over five different sectors. Figure 3 presents the top 10 most important business
and IT goals, consolidated over all sectors. Apart from some minor exceptions, the separate lists of the different sectors include the
same business and IT goals in their individual top 10. This proves that there is a very high degree of consensus that these business and
IT goals are the most important ones. Filtering the results by company size and geographic location confirmed the stability of these lists
of top 10 goals.
Figure 2—Validated Lists of Business and IT Goals
Business Goals IT Goals
Financial (Corporate) Perspective Corporate Contribution3
– Manage (IT-related) business risks. – Offer transparency and understanding of IT costs, benefits and risks.
– Provide a good return on (IT-enabled) business investments. – Ensure IT compliance with laws and regulations.
– Improve financial transparency. – Account for and protect all IT assets.
– Ensure compliance with external laws and regulations. – Drive commitment and support of executive management.
– Improve IT’s cost-efficiency.
– Align the IT strategy to the business strategy.
Customer Perspective User Orientation
– Improve customer orientation and service. – Make sure that IT services are reliable and secure.
– Establish service continuity and availability. – Provide service offerings and service levels in line with business requirements.
– Offer competitive products and services. – Translate business functional and control requirements into effective and
– Achieve cost optimisation of service delivery. efficient automated solutions.
– Create agility in responding to changing business requirements. – Accomplish proper use of applications, information and technology solutions.
– Obtain reliable and useful information for strategic decision making.
Internal Perspective Operational Excellence
– Improve and maintain business process functionality. – Maintain the security (confidentiality, integrity and availability) of information
– Improve and maintain operational and staff productivity. and processing infrastructure.
– Enable and manage business change. – Deliver projects on time and on budget, meeting quality standards.
– Ensure compliance with internal policies. – Optimise the IT infrastructure, resources and capabilities.
– Optimise business process costs. – Provide IT agility (in responding to changing business needs).
– Seamlessly integrate applications and technology solutions into business
processes.
Learning and Growth Perspective Future Orientation
– Acquire, develop and maintain skilled and motivated people. – Acquire, develop and maintain IT skills that respond to the IT strategy.
– Identify, enable and manage product and business innovation. – Acquire knowledge and expertise in emerging technologies for business
innovation and optimisation.
– Ensure that IT demonstrates continuous improvement and readiness for
future change.
3
Because IT may not have a direct impact on the perspectives listed under business goals, the associated IT goals are called corporate contribution, user orientation,
operational excellence and future orientation.

General Findings
Financial and Customer-oriented Goals Score High in Importance
Although priorities may differ from sector to sector, in general, business goals categorised in the customer and financial perspective of
the BSC score high in the ranked list, while the internal and learning and growth perspective goals receive lower scores overall. As an
example, the customer-oriented business goals ‘Improve customer orientation and service’ and ‘Establish service continuity and
availability’ and the financial-oriented business goals ‘Ensure compliance with external laws and regulations’ and ‘Manage IT-related
business risks’ make up the top four in the generic list and are also systematically ranked high to very high in the individual lists by
sector, geographic location and company size.
This trend is confirmed in the IT goals list; the IT goals for the related IT BSC corporate and user perspectives are higher in the list than
those for the internal and the learning and growth perspectives. For example, the corporate contribution-related goals ‘Align the IT
strategy to the business strategy’ and ‘Ensure IT compliance with laws and regulations’ and the user-oriented goals ‘Make sure that IT
services are reliable and secure’ and ‘Provide service offerings and service levels in line with business requirements’ are systematically
ranked high for the different sectors, geographic locations and company sizes.
It is remarkable that the future-oriented business goal for acquiring and maintaining the necessary skills only just makes it in the list of
top 10 business goals (number 8). Its IT counterpart goal, ‘Acquire, develop and maintain IT skills that respond to the IT strategy’, fails
to break into the list of top 10 most important IT goals.
The Role of Sector-specific Characteristics in Prioritising Business and IT Goals
In general, a relatively high degree of consensus was found regarding the most important (top 10) business and IT goals. However, a
number of sector-specific characteristics were identified. As an example, the IT professional services sector’s high dependency on
IT skills is confirmed with a higher ranking for the goal ‘Acquire, develop and maintain IT skills…’. Another important asset
(differentiator) for the enterprises operating in this sector is (knowledge of) advanced technology, which explains the higher importance
of ‘Identify, enable and manage product and business innovation’.
A more detailed discussion on sector-specific differences is presented in the next section, addressing the following sectors:
manufacturing and pharmaceuticals; IT professional services, telecommunications and media; government, utilities and healthcare; and
retail, distribution and transportation.
Figure 3—Prioritised Lists of Top 10 Business and IT Goals
Top 10 Business Goals Top 10 IT Goals
1. Improve customer orientation and service. 1. Align the IT strategy to the business strategy.
2. Ensure compliance with external laws and regulations. 2. Maintain the security (confidentiality, integrity and availability) of information
3. Establish service continuity and availability. and processing infrastructure.
4. Manage (IT-related) business risks. 3. Make sure that IT services are reliable and secure.
5. Offer competitive products and services. 4. Provide service offerings and service levels in line with business
6. Improve and maintain business process functionality. requirements.
7. Provide a good return on (IT-enabled) business investments. 5. Ensure IT compliance with laws and regulations.
8. Acquire, develop and maintain skilled and motivated people. 6. Translate business functional and control requirements into effective and
9. Create agility in responding to changing business requirements. efficient automated solutions.
10. Obtain reliable and useful information for strategic decision making. 7. Deliver projects on time and on budget, meeting quality standards.
8. Drive commitment and support of executive management.
9. Improve IT’s cost-efficiency.
10. Account for and protect all IT assets.

The Impact of Size and Geographic Location
Comparing differences amongst regions in the world or contrasting enterprises of different sizes revealed fewer variations, which may
indicate that sector-related characteristics have a higher impact on setting priorities. Still, there are some minor but interesting differences.
For example, larger enterprises tend to pay more attention than smaller enterprises to business goals such as ‘Ensure compliance with
external laws and regulations’ and ‘Manage (IT-related) business risks’. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the IT goal ‘Acquire, develop
and maintain IT skills that respond to the IT strategy’ appears to be less important compared to other regions in the world.
IT Goals: More Generic Than Business Goals
Another finding is that, in general, the level of agreement amongst the experts for the list of prioritised business goals is lower than the
level of agreement for prioritised IT goals. A possible explanation is that business goals may differ more depending on some external or
internal factors—such as sector-specific characteristics, enterprise size and geographic location—while prioritisation of IT goals may
follow a more generic pattern and may be less influenced by these aspects.
Different Levels of Linking Relationships
This research also contains detailed findings on how IT goals can support business goals (figure 4). From this matrix, it becomes clear
that some goals are defined on a higher level than others. For example, the IT goal ‘Align the IT strategy to the business strategy’
supports all business goals in a primary (P) or a secondary (S) manner, indicating that its scope is broadly defined and covers multiple
areas of IT responsibilities. On the other hand, business goal 15, ‘Improve financial transparency’, and IT goal 13, ‘Offer transparency
and understanding of IT costs, benefits and risks’, show only a primary relationship to each other, confirming their similar and narrowly
defined scope.
IT Goals
BusinessGoals
Improvecustomerorientationandservice.
Ensurecompliancewithexternallaws
andregulations.
Establishservicecontinuityandavailability.
Optimisebusinessprocesscosts.
Enableandmanagebusinesschange.
Improveandmaintainoperationaland
staffproductivity.
Improvefinancialtransparency.
Ensurecompliancewithinternalpolicies.
Identify,enableandmanageproduct
andbusinessinnovation.
Manage(IT-related)businessrisks.
Offercompetitiveproductsandservices.
Improveandmaintainbusinessprocess
functionality.
Provideagoodreturnon(IT-enabled)
businessinvestments.
Acquire,developandmaintainskilledand
motivatedpeople.
Createagilityinrespondingtochanging
businessrequirements.
Obtainreliableandusefulinformationfor
strategicdecisionmaking.
Achievecostoptimisationofservice
delivery.
Align the IT strategy to the business strategy. P S S P P P S S P P S S P S S S P
Maintain the security (confidentiality, integrity and availability) of information P P P P S S P
and processing infrastructure.
Make sure that IT services are reliable and secure. P P P P S S S S S S S S
Provide service offerings and service levels in line with business requirements. P P S P P S S S S S S S S S
Ensure IT compliance with laws and regulations. S P P S S S P
Translate business functional and control requirements into effective and S S S S P S S S S S S S S S
efficient automated solutions.
Deliver projects on time and on budget, meeting quality standards. S S S S S S S S S S
Drive commitment and support of executive management. S S S S S S S S S S
Improve IT’s cost-efficiency. S P P P S
Account for and protect all IT assets. S S S S S S
Acquire, develop and maintain IT skills that respond to the IT strategy. S S P S S S S S
Provide IT agility (in responding to changing business needs). S S S S P P S
Offer transparency and understanding of IT costs, benefits and risks. S S S S P
Optimise the IT infrastructure, resources and capabilities. S S P S P S S
Accomplish proper use of applications, information and technology solutions. S S S S S S S S S S S S S
Seamlessly integrate applications and technology solutions into business
processes. S S P S S S S S S S S
Ensure that IT demonstrates continuous improvement and readiness for S S S P S P
future change.
Acquire knowledge and expertise in emerging technologies for business S S P S S S S P
innovation and optimisation.
P = primary, S = secondary
Figure 4—Linking IT Goals to Business Goals

General Findings
Applying the Results
Preliminary results of this research have already been taken into consideration for the continuous COBIT development/update process and
contain valuable new opportunities for further updates and follow-up research. The results of this research provide practical guidance for
professionals as they build business and IT goals for their specific organisation. Enterprises can do that efficiently by starting from these
generic business and IT goals, selecting what applies to them, and updating them for enterprise-specific situations. This will be a good
starting point towards implementing IT governance.

Sector-specific Findings
Although, as indicated previously, a relatively high degree of consensus was found regarding the most important (top 10) business and
IT goals, a number of sector-specific characteristics were identified. In this section, some sector-specific findings are discussed in more
detail regarding the importance of specific business and IT goals.
Manufacturing and Pharmaceuticals Sector
The prioritised lists of business and IT goals for this sector are presented in figures 5 and 6. Both lists of business goals and IT goals were
generally in line with the overall cross-sector findings (figure 3). As this is often a highly regulated sector, ‘Ensure compliance with
external laws and regulations’ was rated somewhat higher in the importance lists for business goals (moved from ranking 2 to 1) and IT
goals (moved from ranking 5 to 3). Compared to the other sectors, the learning and growth objective ‘Acquire, develop and maintain
skilled and motivated people’ was seen as less important in this sector (six places lower in the list). Also, the IT goal ‘Drive commitment
and support of executive management’ ranked lower in the list and was seen as less important, which may suggest that IT in these sectors
is still seen as less strategic. Between the different sub-sectors of manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, no major differences were noticed.
IT Professional Services, Telecommunications and Media Sector
Figures 7 and 8 present the ranked lists of business and IT goals for the IT professional services, telecommunications and media sector.
The importance ranking in this sector is, for the most part, in line with the overall results. Customer- and financial-oriented goals scored
high, in line with the generic lists (figure 3). The learning and growth business goal ‘Acquire, develop and maintain skilled and
motivated people’ is found higher in this list as compared to other sectors. This seems logical since this sector represents many IT
services and consultancy enterprises, where knowledge and skills are their most important resources. Another important asset
(differentiator) for the enterprises operating in this sector is (knowledge of) advanced technology, which explains the higher importance
of ‘Identify, enable and manage product and business innovation’. The business goals ‘Establish service continuity and availability’ and
‘Improve and maintain business process functionality’ scored lower compared to most other sectors. This may be explained due to lower
focus (and lower budgets) on their own internal processes while most efforts go to customer services.
Figure 5—Prioritised List of Business Goals for the Manufacturing and Pharmaceuticals Sector
Rank Business Goals BSC
1 Ensure compliance with external laws and regulations. Financial
2 Improve customer orientation and service. Customer
3 Establish service continuity and availability. Customer
4 Improve and maintain business process functionality. Internal
5 Offer competitive products and services. Customer
6 Create agility in responding to changing business requirements. Customer
7 Provide a good return on (IT-enabled) business investments. Financial
8 Manage (IT-related) business risks. Financial
9 Obtain reliable and useful information for strategic decision making. Customer
10 Achieve cost optimisation of service delivery. Customer
11 Enable and manage business change. Internal
12 Improve and maintain operational and staff productivity. Internal
13 Optimise business process costs. Internal
14 Acquire, develop and maintain skilled and motivated people. Learning and Growth
15 Improve financial transparency. Financial
16 Ensure compliance with internal policies. Internal
17 Identify, enable and manage product and business innovation. Learning and Growth

Figure 6—Prioritised List of IT Goals for the Manufacturing and Pharmaceuticals Sector
Rank IT Goals BSC
1 Align the IT strategy to the business strategy. Corporate
2 Make sure that IT services are reliable and secure. User
3 Ensure IT compliance with laws and regulations. Corporate
4 Maintain the security (confidentiality, integrity and availability) of information and processing infrastructure. Operational
5 Provide service offerings and service levels in line with business requirements. User
6 Translate business functional and control requirements into effective and efficient automated solutions. User
7 Deliver projects on time and on budget, meeting quality standards. Operational
8 Improve IT’s cost-efficiency. Corporate
9 Offer transparency and understanding of IT costs, benefits and risks. Corporate
10 Provide IT agility (in responding to changing business needs). Operational
11 Acquire, develop and maintain IT skills that respond to the IT strategy. Future
12 Optimise the IT infrastructure, resources and capabilities. Operational
13 Account for and protect all IT assets. Corporate
14 Drive commitment and support of executive management. Corporate
15 Ensure that IT demonstrates continuous improvement and readiness for future change. Future
16 Seamlessly integrate applications and technology solutions into business processes. Operational
17 Accomplish proper use of applications, information and technology solutions. User
18 Acquire knowledge and expertise in emerging technologies for business innovation and optimisation. Future
Figure 7—Prioritised List of Business Goals for the IT Professional Services, Telecommunications and Media Sector

Government, Utilities and Healthcare Sector
Figures 9 and 10 present prioritised lists of business and IT goals for the government, utilities and healthcare sector.
While most customer-oriented business goals scored high in the generic list, this sector placed three out of six customer-oriented goals at
the bottom of the importance list. This may be explained by some typical characteristics of the sector such as strong focus on budget
control, complex decision structures and political influence. However, governmental institutions are also increasing their focus on
providing adequate customer (citizen) services, which is confirmed by the high priority for the customer-oriented goals ‘Improve
customer orientation and goals’ and ‘Establish service continuity and availability’. This is in line with the other sectors.
Figure 8—Prioritised List of IT Goals for the IT Professional Services, Telecommunications and Media Sector
Rank IT Goals BSC
Figure 9—Prioritised List of Business Goals for the Government, Utilities and Healthcare Sector

Figure 10—Prioritised List of IT Goals for the Government, Utilities and Healthcare Sector
Rank IT Goals BSC
Due to the nature of the sector, competition-related goals and goals with respect to change are seen as less important. This is revealed by
the lower scores for the business goals ‘Offer competitive products and services’ and ‘Create agility in responding to changing business
requirements’. This is not directly translated to the list of IT goals; on the contrary, the IT goal ‘Provide IT agility’ is ranked within the
top 10 (number 9), which is three places higher compared to the total list of goals. Thus, while the business seemed to feel less
(important) need to be agile in response to changing (external) business requirements (or maybe business requirements are not changing
that much), the IT services departments felt they should react more directly to the changing (internal) business requirements.
Compared to other sectors, cost optimisation-related goals such as ‘Provide a good return on investment…’ and ‘Achieve cost
optimisation of service delivery’ scored lower in the importance list. An exception was the utilities sub-sector, which had a higher
importance rank for ‘Provide a good return on (IT-enabled) business investments’ (number 7). It is typical for the government, utilities
and healthcare sector that internal (and external) policies are to be strictly followed, which was confirmed by the highly ranked business
goals ‘Improve financial transparency’ (number 6) and ‘Ensure compliance with internal policies’ (number 9), respectively nine and
seven places higher than in the generic list. This is reinforced even in the utilities sector, which may be a consequence of the specific
market situation (monopoly/oligopoly) requiring a controlled environment.
Within the list of IT goals, there was one goal with a remarkable difference compared to other sectors: the goal ‘Deliver projects on
time and on budget, meeting quality standards’ ends up at the bottom of the list, 10 places lower than other sectors. In the healthcare
sector specifically, the IT goal ‘Drive commitment and support of executive management’ is ranked very high (number 3).
Retail, Distribution and Transportation Sector
This sector represents retail, distribution and transportation enterprises. Figures 11 and 12 present the results based on the feedback
from 16 respondents in the first round and 10 in the second round.
This sector also shows some significant differences compared to the overall cross-sector list. For example, this was the only sector where
the business goal ‘Ensure compliance with external laws and regulations’ (number 10) was not in the top three, indicating that
compliance is not a major priority in the retail, distribution and transportation sector. From the sector-specific characteristics, it seems
that customer loyalty is rather weak in this sector and initiatives are undertaken to deal with this situation. This is also confirmed by the
top four most important business goals, which were all customer-oriented.

Figure 12—Prioritised List of IT Goals for the Retail, Distribution and Transportation Sector
Rank IT Goals BSC
Another remarkable difference compared to other sectors concerns the learning and growth business goals. For example, the goal
‘Acquire, develop and maintain skilled and motivated people’ scored very low (number 14) compared to the overall list (number 8); on
the other hand, this is the only sector in which the learning and growth business goal ‘Identify, enable and manage product and business
innovation’ had a place in the top 10 (number 7). Together with the high ranking for ‘Offer competitive products and services’, this may
be explained by the increased competition in the market. Also, the business goals ‘Create agility in responding to changing business
requirements’ (number 4) and ‘Optimise business process costs’ (number 7) received a higher priority compared to the overall business
goals list. Because of the retail, distribution and transportation sector-specific characteristic of low profit margins, it seems logical that
the attention for keeping costs under control is higher in this sector.
As for the IT goals list, no major differences in the top six goals compared to overall sectors were noted. The goals ‘Optimise the IT
infrastructure, resources and capabilities’, ‘Provide IT agility’ and ‘Ensure that IT demonstrates continuous improvement and readiness
for future change’ are seen as more important compared to other sectors. This again may confirm the high priority for offering
competitive products and services in a timely matter. Surprisingly, the goal related to cost optimisation seemed less important than other
goals: ‘Improve IT’s cost-efficiency’ (number 14) fell lower down the list than in other sectors.
Figure 11—Prioritised List of Business Goals for the Retail, Distribution and Transportation Sector

Full Research Research Available
Full Research Report Available
This white paper presents a solid and strong list of 17 generic business goals and 18 generic IT goals, validated and prioritised over
different sectors. Together with the linking information between both, it provides a good basis upon which to build a generic cascade
from business goals to IT goals. A strong list of top 10 most important business and IT goals was identified over the different sectors and
further analysis by sector and geographic location identified interesting deviations, which increases the practical relevance for companies
operating in a specific sector that want to use these lists to help them identify a good set of business/IT goals.
More detailed information regarding the full research methodology and resulting data by specific industry, size or geographic location is
available in the complete research report at www.itgi.org.

List of Figures
Figure 1—Expert Team Composition...............................................................................................................................................................7
Figure 2—Validated Lists of Business and IT Goals.......................................................................................................................................8
Figure 3—Prioritised Lists of Top 10 Business and IT Goals.........................................................................................................................9
Figure 4—Linking IT Goals to Business Goals.............................................................................................................................................10
Figure 5—Prioritised List of Business Goals for the Manufacturing and Pharmaceuticals Sector.............................................................12
Figure 6—Prioritised List of IT Goals for the Manufacturing and Pharmaceuticals Sector........................................................................13
Figure 7—Prioritised List of Business Goals for the IT Professional Services, Telecommunications and Media Sector..........................13
Figure 8—Prioritised List of IT Goals for the IT Professional Services, Telecommunications and Media Sector.....................................14
Figure 9—Prioritised List of Business Goals for the Government, Utilities and Healthcare Sector...........................................................14
Figure 10—Prioritised List of IT Goals for the Government, Utilities and Healthcare Sector....................................................................15
Figure 11—Prioritised List of Business Goals for the Retail, Distribution and Transportation Sector.......................................................16
Figure 12—Prioritised List of IT Goals for the Retail, Distribution and Transportation Sector .................................................................16

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