Adding value to the IT organization with the Component Business Model

The current stage of information technology (IT) evolution focuses on moving from a technology-based to a services-based orientation. To that end, IT leadership has had to shift from focusing primarily on technological issues to learning to manage IT like a business, with IT services as the primary "product" produced and consumed by customers. The Component Business ModelTM for the Business of IT (CBMBolT) provides a powerful, flexible new perspective of IT as a means to assist with strategic decision making. The foundation of CBMBoIT is the IBM Process Reference Model for IT (PRM-IT), which describes the underlying process activity flows. This paper describes the Component Business Model and the PRM-IT and gives examples of IT environments in order to illustrate how using these models can aid executives in illuminating strategic options that may be overlooked using conventional atomistic approaches.