IT is essential to manage transactions, information and knowledge necessary to initiate and sustain economic and social activities. These activities increasingly rely on globally cooperating entities to be successful. In many organizations, IT is fundamental to support, sustain and grow the business.

While many organizations recognize the potential benefits that technology can yield, the successful ones also understand and manage the risks associated with implementing new technologies. Among the enterprise's challenges and concerns are:

• Aligning IT strategy with the business strategy 
• Cascading strategy and goals down into the enterprise 
• Providing organizational structures that facilitate the implementation of strategy and goals 
• Insisting that an IT control framework be adopted and implemented 
• Measuring IT's performance

Effective and timely measures aimed at addressing these top management concerns need to be promoted by the governance layer of an enterprise. Hence, boards and executive management need to extend governance, already exercised over the enterprise, to IT by way of an effective IT governance framework that addresses strategic alignment, performance measurement, risk management, value delivery and resource management. Simply put, IT governance and the effective application of an IT governance framework are the responsibilities of the board of directors and executive management. IT governance is an integral part of enterprise governance and consists of the leadership and organizational structures and processes that ensure that the organization's IT sustains and extends the organization's strategies and objectives. An IT governance framework, such as Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) can be a critical element in ensuring proper control and governance over information and the systems that create, store, manipulate and retrieve it. For a complete overview of the role of IT governance in an enterprise, the responsibilities of boards of directors and executive management for IT governance, and tools to begin implementing effective IT governance, see the IT Governance Institute's publication, Board Briefing on IT Governance, 2^nd Edition (now also available in German ).  To review an IT governance framework, see COBIT.