Strategic Alignment Perspectives on a Government Level in Australia - Essay Example

Governing information technology is one of the most critical issues facing governments today. Henderson and Venkatraman [2] argue that Information Technology (IT) can deliver no value without carefully planning to achieve the potential of IT implementation with business goals. Such concern is a focus of many business executives today [3, 4]. The concept of the Strategic Alignment perspectives is used as a systematic measurement tool to better achieve the mutual linkage between business and IT strategies.
The current SA perspectives are then analyzed in a local Australian Council context in which these perspectives are most appropriately used and the appropriate practices for IT value are recommended to be used in public policy. An Australian Council is responsible for a city’s basic needs like garbage removal, planning of the town, and parks. The focus on an Australian Council was chosen due to the simplicity of this type of governance.
The roots of Strategic Alignment go back almost four decades where academics and researchers have attempted to understand the role of IS/IT in the organization [2, 5-8].
Henderson and Venkatraman [2] define Strategic Alignment as ‘selecting appropriate alignment perspectives for achieving business objectives'. Reich & Benbasat [9] defines alignment as the degree to which the information technology mission, objectives, and plans support are supported by the business mission, objectives, and plans. Luftman [4] defines business-IT alignment as applying IT in an appropriate and timely way in harmony with business strategies, goals, and needs.
Kearns & Sabherwal [10] argue that to improve organizational performance, achieving Strategic Alignment between business and IT is essential. Others argue that a firm’s failure to realize the potential value of IT is due partially to the absence of Strategic Alignment [2, 11, 12].
In 2007 Chan and Reich [3] published an annotated bibliography of alignment which listed over 150 articles. The current concept of the Strategic Alignment models in some ways reflects and accommodates a long history of research and practice concerning the most effective means of linking business and technology strategies. However, it is important to measure this alignment and to quantify its effectiveness.
Responding to a call for a more comprehensive alignment measurement, many models have been developed. For example, the Critical Success Factors (CSF) model developed by Rockart [13] is one of the earliest models that link the use of IT to organizational objectives and its strategies. The CSF is still widely used today. The Strategic Grid model, developed by McFarlan [14], addresses four quadrants: support, factory, transition, and strategy each of which represents a situation for the company. This model explains how IT is related to strategy and business operations in a company.
The Strategic Alignment  Model (SAM) was formulated by  Henderson and Venkatraman [2] and forms the basis of many recent models today.