Effectiveness of IT Governance at AccentureAccenture has a globally interconnected workforce to meet the needs of a multipolar business environment characterized by multiple centers of economic power and activity, high economic integration between geographical areas and information and communication technologies that have no equal. Today, more than 60% of its 178,000 employees experience high collaboration and productivity thanks to their reliance on infrastructure that is accessible anytime, anywhere. IT has an award-winning CIO organization charged with delivering innovative and effective information technology (IT) solutions that enable its internal customers to achieve high performance. Therefore, at the heart of this responsibility is a coherent and universally accepted governance model that goes hand in hand with the business strategies that drive corporate growth. The Business Challenge The best companies must develop a strong performance anatomy that allows them to continually pursue customer value innovations and differentiate themselves. by competitors. And an increasingly important component of this strong performance anatomy is the enterprise's IT capability that enables a high-performance-focused company to create and act on real-time customer and business information, create new products and services and transform business models. Likewise, a strong and proactive IT governance model that ensures business leaders are involved in planning and aligning IT initiatives with business priorities is also important, something Accenture understands well. Furthermore, the company's IT governance needs are particularly demanding, as the organization is highly structured with five operational groups, 17 focused industry groups...... half of the document ...... had business advantages original cases approved by the IT Steering Committee from fiscal years 2005 to 2007. The new IT governance model that meets the demand for collaboration has enabled the company to meet the needs of its customers and end users and also keep its employees at cutting edge of technology. The numbers tell the story themselves: a leading benchmark of industry analysts from the world's largest IT organizations ranked Accenture best in 3 key metrics: lowest IT workforce as a percentage of headcount; lower IT spending as a percentage of net revenue; and the lowest IT spend per employee. All this was only possible thanks to solid IT governance which strengthened the company's ability to transform IT into a strategic asset. Doing so helped ensure that its IT strategy was closely aligned with its business strategy from the start.