Abstract
In recent years, IT has come to play an important role in companies. So successful execution of business processes often depends on mission-critical IT-solutions. Managing such IT is challenging. Companies have to keep up with rapid developments, but also consider long-term consequences while doing so. How do they survive in the long run without surrendering in the short run? What should be done in-house? What should be bought from external providers? How should they allocate scarce IT resources? This book answers these questions on the basis of four cases from the financial industry. After describing and analyzing IT portfolios, it investigates the questions of sourcing and technology adoption. Finally, it explores the relationship between mission-critical IT and business operations. The study suggests different ways of analyzing the role applications play in a company rather than the applications themselves. The character of an application may be in the eye of the beholder. Framing applications from both business and IT perspectives is also important, especially in information intensive companies. The Resource Allocation Matrix provides a tool for characterizing four types of IT-management efforts: agile action, firefighting, business transformation and platform construction.