IT Governance not only for the big players, it does not matter how small your company is, planning is always a importend step to increase success certainty.

IT is essential to manage transactions, information and knowledge necessary to initiate and sustain economic and social activities. In many small and midsized businesses, IT is fundamental to support, sustain and grow the business.

While many businesses and organizations recognize the potential benefits that technology can yield, the successful ones also understand and manage the risks associated with implementing new technologies. Among the enterprise's challenges and concerns are:

• Aligning IT strategy with the business strategy
• Cascading strategy and goals down into the enterprise
• Providing organizational structures that facilitate the implementation of strategy and goals
• Insisting that an IT control framework be adopted and implemented
• Measuring IT's performance

Effective and timely measures aimed at addressing these management concerns need to be promoted by the governance layer of an small and midsized businesses. Hence, boards and executive management need to extend governance, already exercised over the enterprise, to IT by way of an effective IT governance framework that addresses strategic alignment, performance measurement, risk management, value delivery and resource management. Simply put, IT governance and the effective application of an IT governance framework are the responsibilities of the board of directors and executive management. IT governance is an integral part of enterprise governance and consists of the leadership and organizational structures and processes that ensure that the organization's IT sustains and extends the organization's strategies and objectives. An IT governance framework, such as Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) can be a critical element in ensuring proper control and governance over information and the systems that create, store, manipulate and retrieve it.

Why does small and midsized businesses need IT Governance? IT environment can become as complex and frail as an open clock work. Too often IT within smaller companies is neglected often. Neither the executive nor employees have a plan for disaster recovery or just how to line up IT environment within business need. Planning and governing IT might be more costly at the very fist step but it will save you money and lower your IT budget thereafter.

eXtended mind will give you freedom concentrate on your key business issues knowing that you are backed by a reliable, affordable and appropriate IT infrastructure.