When Dr. Jerry N. Luftman established the information systems graduate programs at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, he didn't envision that it would someday become one of the world's largest, with more than 1,000 students. Most of the graduate students have at least 10 years of professional experience. The effective alignment between IT (or IS) with the needs of the business has become a critical part of the curriculum and a major research area for Dr. Luftman. Students put themselves in the tactical role of a CIO, and then in the strategic role where a CIO builds business strategy driven by IT.

During the past 20 years, many processes have evolved to improve the over arching relationship between IT and the business. Business service management or BSM has emerged as an important concept for improving availability and performance. It's also a complement to the IT Infrastructure Library or ITIL. BSM tries to ensure that IT processes are in harmony with the business processes so IT can improve the business's services. Specifically, BSM looks at what affect each of the different services and the technologies supported by IT can have on the business.

Dr. Luftman says that BSM has become necessary because today's systems are tightly integrated with each other. He says, "You have a myriad of different hardware and different software technologies, such as Web servers, databases, file servers, middleware, and virtual servers. If there's a problem with any of these things, how can you stay out in front to be more proactive, to be responsive to our business, and to be able to minimize the impact it might have on the business. That's where BSM comes in."

Bio

Dr. Jerry N. Luftman is the executive director of graduate information systems (IS) programs, and distinguished professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. Before establishing the IS graduate programs at Stevens, Dr. Luftman had a 23-year technology and product management career with IBM.

The Society for Information Management (SIM) sponsors Dr. Luftman's annual study about IT trends, which has served as an industry barometer for the past 10 years. He also has served on the executive boards of several companies and organizations, such as SIM and The Conference Board. He has written dozens of journal articles about IT, and is author of Competing in the Information Age: Align in the Sand, Competing in the Information Age: Strategic Alignment in Practice, and Managing the Information Technology Resource: Leadership in the Information Age.

Resources
A Dialogue with Business on the IT Curriculum for the 21st Century and Its Impact on Talent Management - Society of Information Management
Jerry N. Luftman News from Fierce CIO
Competing in the Information Age:Strategic Alignment in Practice - Oxford University Press

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