“What is the value of IT?”
It’s the question that gets asked over and over. But the question itself is not the problem – it’s a symptom. It distracts from the real issue: the absence of organizational accountability for IT value.
As a result, your organization gets the IT it deserves.
How organizations end up with the IT they deserve
Organizations end up with poor IT when:
- Technology is viewed as a cost center
- Leadership fails to modernize or invest
- Business units and IT operate in silos
- Digital transformation lacks clarity
- Governance is weak or outdated
- The human experience is undervalued
That’s not to say that all of this is the fault of the organization. IT can influence many of these issues by defining a service catalog. A service catalog is the authoritative, business-facing description of IT services—defined in clear, outcome-oriented terms that show how IT enables business value. A service catalog is not a list of technologies or a menu of request forms. It is a structured representation of what the IT organization delivers, why it matters, and how it supports business outcomes.
Without a service catalog, IT becomes invisible – a utility seen as a just a back-office function tasked with fixing technology and keeping systems running, rather than driving value. This mindset allows the business to avoid owning strategic technology decisions, deflecting responsibility for unclear business requirements, shifting priorities, poor planning, or the lack of business strategy alignment. As a result, IT is left to guess or assume what business outcomes the organization is expecting.
On the other hand, when the business and IT work as one team, the question of “IT value” disappears. IT value isn’t a question when:
- Organizational leadership treats IT as strategic, not tactical
- Investments (including technology) align with business priorities
- Workforce readiness is cultivated
- Innovation and foresight become cultural norms
- Processes are designed to enable, not constrain
- Systems are human-centric and intuitive
The key difference in the organization getting the IT it deserves – good or bad – is how business strategy and IT strategy are connected. The service catalog (or lack thereof) is the concrete expression of that connection.
What we have here is a lack of strategic alignment
As Mark Lutchen noted in Managing IT as a Business, technology only delivers benefits when implemented with an understanding that it changes how a company works. Among the principles discussed within his book, Lutchen advised that business and IT strategy must align to ensure that technology drives profits.
But when business strategy and technology strategy are treated separately, then the organization is constrained, if not prevented, from fully leveraging technology for business benefit. This approach results in bad behaviors within the organization, such as
- IT is expected to align to a business strategy for which it had no input
- IT is brought in at the last minute to strategic business discussions when it becomes apparent that technology is involved.
McKinsey’s research reinforces this point – without aligning investments to strategic technology trends, organizations chase hype instead of harvesting value. Many companies chase trends without developing internal capacity, resulting in minimal return.
Defining IT services and, subsequently, a service catalog not only provides a framework to evaluate innovation, but it also represents a mutually agreed understanding between IT and the rest of the business for ensuring that technology investments result in business value.
But the hard truth is that some organizations do not want to change the status quo. Some within organizations would rather bluster about “IT value” rather than taking action to establish and enforce accountability through strategic alignment.
Stop debating IT value, start aligning IT with the business
Defining IT services establishes the critical foundation for answering the question “what is the value of IT?” Start from the “outside” then work back “inside” the organization to answer the following questions:
- What is the business of the business?
- Who are our customers?
- What do those customers need?
- Why do those customers come to us?
- What do those customers expect from us?
- Who is accountable for ensuring that customers are happy?
- What combinations of IT and non-IT people, processes, and technology enable us to do that?
The answers to these questions provide the foundation for defining services, and ultimately, a service catalog.
Earn the IT you deserve
Business-IT alignment is one of the strongest predictors of whether technology investments translate into outcomes such as business performance, operational excellence, and competitive advantage. IT cannot create value in isolation – it’s the partnership between IT and the business that unlocks it. A well-defined service catalog demonstrates that both share a common understanding of value, outcomes, and expectations – the foundation of alignment.
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