Japan Enterprises' IT Governance Challenges in Their Group Management, 2024

This IDC Perspective describes the state of "IT governance" that supports the progression of digital business (DB) and digital transformation (DX) among Japanese companies (tech buyers = end-user companies) that have multiple bases, branches, affiliates, and group companies both domestically and globally. In this document, "IT governance" is defined not simply as a management task, but as "activities ranging from planning to evaluation/improvement in the strategy, investment, environment implementation, human resources, security, and so forth, of IT/DX in corporate operations". In addition, we limited the target areas of IT governance to the following five areas and conducted questionnaire surveys and interviews (with two companies): (1) IT/DX strategy planning and progression, (2) IT investment planning and evaluation, (3) IT environment installation/implementation/development/maintenance/operation, (4) data utilization and management, and (5) information security assurance and improvement.As a result, although it is still insufficient, about half of the Japanese companies with multiple group companies recognize the need for IT governance in each of the five areas and are making progress in addressing this issue. However, while attempting to further develop digital business by leveraging the synergistic effects of having group companies, it is necessary to simultaneously advance IT governance to support this.To achieve this, says Go Suzuki, research manager at Tech Buyer, IDC Japan, recommends that "digital business progression, digitalization/systemization, and IT governance must be pursued together, and IT governance must be achieved through the company's comprehensive strengths".This is the English translation of the Japanese document IDC #