Understanding COBIT

Framework: Structure,
Components & Benefits
By
Ingrid Horvath
-
Last Modified On: August 19, 2022
8183

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: