SAP's Sapphire conference features some great presentations, (with slides and online video), particularly from successful implementations of large scale SAP Enterprise Systems.

Whether you are a large scale company or a medium sized or small organisation, whether you use SAP or not, there are lessons to be learnt from implementations made by other organisations. The same issues must be worked through:

• Change Management
• Strategic Planning
• Alignment of the Business and IT
• Moving from Silos of data to a single source of truth
• How to embrace web services and much more...

It is a great way to learn how other organisations address these issues.
This year you can attend Sapphire online by registering at http://www.sapphirenow.com/

How do you maximise the Value of IT to the Business? This is a question being asked by the CIO Executive Council. They have developed a IT Value Matrix that illustrates the principles and practices to essential to creating, identifying and communicating IT's value to the enterprise.

It can be downloaded at www.cioexecutivecouncil.com/it_value or below

ITValueMatrix (1953 KB)

Its "Enduring principles of IT" below are a good general guideline and tie in with our philosophy and approach at Bua Consulting:

"

1. The primary goal of IT is to align with major enterprise objectives. Every technology initiative must be tied in a provable way with business value.
2. Because all major business initiatives are dependent upon technology, the CIO must have a voice at the table at which key business decisions are made.
3. With technology at the intersection of a business, the CIO has the responsibility to understand a business's complexities, influence executive peers, and present technology strategy in terms the business can understand.
4. Technology leaders are agents of change. Transition is our stable state.
5. Communication and relationship building are equally as important to IT leadership as technology skills.
6. Successful technology leadership must strike a balance between competing forces: Short v's long term value, technology v's business focus, leading v's enabling.
7. The Cio is responsible for cultivating technology leaership at all levels of the organisation. "