COBIT is an acronym for the Control Objectives for Information and related Technology. It covers governance, risk management, and security management. It was introduced in 2017 to replace COBIT 4.
IT management revolves around best practice frameworks. The frameworks offer different philosophies and show you concrete paths. It will help you reduce costs and efficiently manage IT resources. The frameworks can also help you measure risks and provide faster customer service. It also enables you to conduct thorough analysis through predictive methods.
If you take up a professional course regarding “What is COBIT.” you will realize that it is one such framework. But the scope of COBIT is different from most frameworks. COBIT is primarily focused on risk management, security, and governance. COBIT won’t be suitable for the following:
- Streamlining the business process
- Syncing IT infrastructure with business needs
- Altering the IT infrastructure
- Managing the multi-cloud
The reliance of businesses on the IT infrastructure has become quite heavy. Some companies are even treating IT as a product. COBIT will be essential for creating, controlling, and managing risk and security. All enterprises worldwide can benefit from COBIT.
The COBIT domains
COBIT revolves around aligning business goals around the IT infrastructure. It provides various metrics and maturity models. They are responsible for measuring the achievements and identifying business responsibilities in the IT process. The main focus of COBIT can be understood through a process-based model. The model is divided into four primary domains:
- Planning and Organization
- Delivering and Supporting
- Acquiring and Implementing
- Monitoring and Evaluation
The 5 vital components of COBIT
- Framework: It revolves around organizing the goals of IT governance. It helps bring the best practices for IT processes and domains. Therefore, linking business requirements with the IT infrastructure becomes easier.
- Process Descriptions: They are a reference model, and every individual within the organization views it as a common language. Process descriptions revolve around planning, designing, implementing, and tracking IT processes.
- Control Objectives: It helps identify the requirements considered by the management. The requirements are necessary for effective business control.
- Maturity Models: They are essential for assessing the maturity and capability of every process. The primary purpose of maturity models is to address gaps within the business model.
- Management Guidelines: The management guidelines revolve around allocating responsibilities. Moreover, it is also essential to agree on objectives. The guidelines also help with performance measurement. Therefore, it demonstrates links with other processes.
Top 5 Principles of the COBIT framework
The COBIT framework is based on five principles. The principles are essential for designing an environment supporting IT governance and management. The five principles in the COBIT framework are as follows:
1. Satisfying stakeholder requirements
Every organization should prioritize meeting stakeholder demands. But they should simultaneously maintain optimal data security. COBIT allows companies to formulate strategies accordingly.
Organizations need to start by effectively managing their resources. They should be able to extract every benefit out of the resources. But some risks are also associated with utilizing their resources. COBIT enables organizations to manage even the risky demands of stakeholders. It ensures proper governance, negotiation, and decision-making to deliver optimal results.
2. A holistic approach toward governance
IT governance is not important for the entire organization. COBIT ensures that companies can take a holistic approach to governance. It leads to the development of enterprise-wide governance through specific enablers.
The enablers can be categorized into the following:
- Policies and principles
- Structures inside the organization
- Every data and information
- All the processes involved in business operations
- Skills and competencies of the employees
The implementation of the five main categories ensures effective governance. The enablers can be applied to every department within the company.
3. Considering the entire project
The entire project should be seen as one while considering governance. COBIT integrates enterprise and IT governance under one platform. It combines IT services with business processes. COBIT aspires to create value through governance. By using the enablers effectively, it aims to assign them different roles. Finally, COBIT can efficiently decide the scope of every project.
4. Single integrated platform
COBIT also serves as an integrated platform for tackling changes in technology. It can manage risk and monitor information through one integrated platform. Personalization suits different organizations. Therefore, compliance with regulatory standards becomes easier.
5. Differentiating between management and governance
Governance and management are two different things. They do not have identical responsibilities or objectives. They need different management structures. While COBIT integrates the two, it can separate them.
The framework used for governance is the following:
- Evaluate
- Direct
- Monitor
The framework used for management purposes is the following:
- Plan
- Build
- Run
- Monitor
Parameters in the COBIT framework
The COBIT framework has two parameters that help with the scope and operation. The two parameters are as follows:
- Control: It is the form of procedures, policies, practices, and organizational structures. They provide a certain level of assurance that business strategies and objectives can be met. It also helps identify undesired incidents faster.
- IT Control Objective: It refers to the statement of the level of acceptable results that should be attained. The results can be obtained by implementing control procedures around a specific IT operation.
The control model classes available today include:
- Business control model class
- Control model classed focused on IT
COBIT attempts to bridge the gap between the two control model classes. COBIT operates at a higher level than pure technology standards. The underlying concept of COBIT focuses on the information required to support business objectives and requirements. The information is treated by a combined application of IT-related resources that IT processes can manage.
Ending note
Like any best practice protocol, COBIT is also a structure to move forward. But successful implementation can drive necessary business results only by combining other things. Both change and time management are necessary for COBIT to enhance IT security and governance. A professional COBIT course is highly beneficial for successfully embracing the new direction.