CIOs seeking the sweet spot between governance, strategy and value can safely ignore physical infrastructure in their efforts to interface with the rest of the business, according to John Roberts.
"The business just does not care about what kind of servers our routers you are going to buy," he says.
Instead, CIOs should concentrate on making sure that their engagement with the business is productive, creative and works hard to ensure that IT directions are determined by business strategy.
To find the sweet spot, he recommends considering three elements:

• Ensure IT strategy is being optimized and implemented


• Make governance forums places of creative debate, insight and optimum decisions


• Ensure IT's value and contribution is understood and continually enhanced

Achieving these three, he said, will not be possible "… if you are running IT as a cost centre. That's a no-win situation."

But a mutually acceptable and beneficial outcome can be achieved, he said, when IT focuses on applications as the most important tool to align with business strategy, and makes sure it can also point to strong architectural plans, firm principles that inform decisions and a talented team that is evolving to meet emerging needs.

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