IT departments of larger corporations can be characterized as follows by the "business" - mysterious, expensive, internally focused. This is why there is tremendous churn in the upper management levels coupled with a lot of overtime, internal conflict and just churn in general. A classic recurring theme are the "governance" meetings where metrics are shared that the business people simply cannot relate to, and all the metrics are green. Availability for example is always at 99.xx% despite system outages everyone knows about.
Process matters because it is table stakes for the CIO. If he can manage an effective and efficient IT organization, it allows him to provide advise to the business on how they can improve their business processes. Developing a process strategy is one of three vital strategies a CIO must develop, and soon if their tenure if they are to be successful, and more importantly provide value to the business.
next time - what is IT strategy, and the outlines of a process strategy.
