IT Governance is the highest priority in today’s complex business environment. With the rise in breaches of security, systems and frameworks such as COBIT can make the world of a difference in organizations. COBIT was created by ISACA as an IT management framework to help various enterprises manage their data and information.
Now, over 95% of companies use at least one framework to help them with their IT governance and information management, out of which the most widely used one is COBIT.
History of COBIT
COBIT stands for Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies. The initial release of the COBIT system was in 1996. It was nothing more than a set of objectives that were created to assist with the growth of IT environments for auditors and other members of the finance community.
The second release was in 1998 and the second version had ISACA enable COBIT for use outside of the auditing community as well. The third version came out in the 2000s with the IT governance framework and techniques that are used today.
Principles of the COBIT Framework
There are five main principles of the COBIT framework. These are crucial in creating an environment focused on effective IT management and governance. The five principles revolve around meeting stakeholder needs, encompassing the entire organization, creating a holistic approach to governance, and more.
The principles are discussed in-depth below.
Meeting Stakeholder Needs
The priority for all organizations is to fulfill stakeholder needs while maintaining optimal security for their data. COBIT enables this transformation and helps companies create strategies that will help them meet their goal.
There are three parts to this process. Organizations need to manage their resources optimally, and they also need to reap benefits from their resources. At the same time, the third factor involved in this scenario is the risks that come along with it. COBIT creates a balance between all three factors for organizations. This process involves managing all the needs of the stakeholders, even the conflicting ones, by proper governance, decision-making, and negotiation so that the end result delivers value.
Taking a Holistic Approach to Governance
IT governance is more than just for the IT department. It needs to cover the entire organization, and COBIT does that. One of the main principles of COBIT is to take a holistic approach to governance and work with IT, auditing, and management to create effective and enterprise-wide governance using certain ‘enablers’. These enablers can be applied to all departments within an organization and are divided into five main categories:
- Principles and Policies
- Structures within the company
- All the information and data
- Processes of the company
- Competencies and skills of the employees
Covering the Entire Project
COBIT is also focused on covering the entire project as a whole when it comes to governance. It integrates IT and enterprise governance into one platform by combining the IT services and processes along with the business processes. COBIT has four main objectives here, which are to create value using governance, using the enablers effectively, assign roles and responsibilities, and deciding the scope of each project.
Single Integrated Framework
COBIT is a single integrated framework to tackle all the changes in the technologies, manage risks, and govern information, all in one. It consistently covers the entire organization. COBIT can also be customized to suit the needs of each and every organization and maintain regulatory standards for the company.
Creating a Difference Between Governance and Management
Since governance and management have different objectives, responsibilities, and different activities, they need different structures to manage them. COBIT integrates them and also separates the two by using different frameworks.
For governance purposes, COBIT uses the EDM method, which is to:
- Evaluate
- Direct
- Monitor
For management purposes, COBIT uses the PBRM method, which is:
- Plan
- Build
- Run
- Monitor
COBIT Structure
There are three levels that form the structure for COBIT. These three levels include the following:
- IT Resources
- IT Processes
- Business Requirements
IT resources include the following:
- IT Infrastructure
- IT applications
- Information and data
- IT team members
IT processes have two aspects to them which are:
- IT processes
- IT domains
Business requirements or the criteria for information include the following metrics:
- Availability
- Effectiveness
- Efficiency
- Integrity
- Compliance
- Reliability
- Confidentiality
COBIT Framework and Components
The COBIT Framework
The main COBIT framework has been created to link business goals with IT operations. It is done by providing certain information metrics as well as maturity models that help integrate the responsibilities of the IT and business aspects in an organization and check the progress.
There are two main parameters that are involved in the COBIT framework that help with its scope and operation. They are control and IT control objectives. The control aspect in COBIT is concerned with creating various procedures, policies, practices, and organizational structures. These help companies give assurance to the stakeholders that all the business processes will attain their objectives as well as prevent any undesirable outcomes by managing IT and enterprise risks. IT control objective is a statement that considers the acceptable results that need to be achieved by implementing the processes created by the control objective that is concerned with IT.
The business or control models include COSO and CoCo, and the IT control objective models include DTI. COBIT combines the two to give optimal results.
COBIT is generally preferred because it defines IT governance as a complete structure in itself instead of it being a part of IT. This helps in including the entire organization and helping maintain security and achieve business objectives.
Components of COBIT
There are five main components of COBIT. These are the COBIT framework, process descriptions, management guidelines, maturity models, and control objectives.
- COBIT framework: The COBIT framework is designed to help organizations organize and categorize all of their objectives when it comes to IT governance. It also helps companies follow good practices in the IT domain and integrates it with the business requirements as a whole
- Process descriptions: These descriptions provide organizations with a process model and create a common language for all departments across the enterprise
- Management guidelines: These management guidelines are used to assign job roles and responsibilities for IT governance. This helps in creating a uniform structure across the company and helps departments work together and agree on their business objectives as well as measure overall performance. The guidelines also showcase the relationship COBIT has with all other processes in the organization
- Maturity models: Maturity models in COBIT are used to better understand the capability and maturity level of each process and work on any gaps found in the same
- Control objectives: The control objectives created in the COBIT framework give organizations certain requirements they need to meet so that they can manage their control of IT processes effectively in the company
Final Thoughts
COBIT systems and frameworks have helped organizations for years achieve optimal IT governance and management of risks. This is why training individuals and enterprise teams in popular COBIT 5 certifications is necessary to completely realize the business benefits of implementing COBIT 5 for an organization.
Some of the popular IT Security and Governance certification courses that individuals and enterprise teams can take up are:
