Datasheet

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Physical assets, such as buildings, property, equipment, and similar

ﬁxed assets

Intellectual property, such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade-

marks, brands

Information, data, and IT assets

Relationship assets, such as customer, supplier, and regulatory

relationships

In this sense, then, governance is essential where the allocation and

management of critical corporate resources impacts corporate performance.

Decisions relating to the management of human resources have a direct

bearing on organizational performance, as well as legal and ﬁnancial impli-

cations; and thus human resources can fall under a governance process. Cer-

tainly, key executive hiring and ﬁring decisions are made by subcommittees

comprised of members of the board of directors, and those decisions often

fall under the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting require-

ments for public companies. The same can be said for ﬁnancial manage-

ment, physical assets, intellectual property, IT assets, and others.

The irony is that IT governance became important after the Internet hu-

bris of the mid- to late-1990s and the Y2K hype when IT spending seemed

to spin out of control without clear accountability to the business and with-

out a direct connection to business performance. In other words, the rise of

IT governance is a backlash against the unchecked and seemingly ‘‘reckless’’

IT spending of the go-go 1990s. IT governance was necessary to get control

of ‘‘those IT guys’’ and ensure they would not be able so spend corporate

funds on IT toys without appropriate checks and balances. Governance was

about proper oversight, transparency, and stakeholder involvement in crit-

ical decisions, ultimately the appropriate use of IT funds on behalf of the

business stakeholders.

Now, with the rise of SOA and enterprise SOA governance, the mean-

ing and emphasis of governance varies dramatically depending on what

your interests are. SOA in and of itself can mean the strategic aspects of

SOA, such as strategy development, program and initiative selection, and

funding and budgeting. Of course, SOA governance also entails the archi-

tectural dimensions of SOA, the services aspects of SOA, the software deliv-

ery and service development dimensions of SOA, and the operational

management dimensions of services in the SOA. The following are major

forms of enterprise governance that are common across industry:

Corporate Governance. Transparency, oversight, and conformance to

corporate policies and support for key corporate decisions by the board

of directors.

Governance and Resource Management and Allocation 9