Excellent CFO magazine article on ERP for IT

CFO Magazine has a great new article: "What, Where, and How Much? New software may help companies understand the true scope and cost of IT infrastructure." It's a cutting-edge look at the ERP for IT problem (they even use that term) - of course, I may be biased because I'm quoted in it. As you might gather from the title, the audience is financial executives, not technologists.

The article quotes analysts who use the terms "ERP for IT," "IT resource-planning systems," or "integrated IT management." One thing that is missing is any reference to IT Service Management. This industry is still in some fundamental churn about what to call basic concepts - are ERP for IT and IT Service Management the same things?

I think not at this point; from what I've seen, there is not enough robustness in IT Service Management around enterprise architecture, project portfolio management and the software development lifecycle. But there's no question that for the ultimate success of ERP for IT as described in this article, integration with ITSM processes, concepts, and tools will be essential.

-Charlie