Alignment of Business Strategy and IT Strategy - Essay Example

 Alignment of Business Strategy and IT Strategy I.1 Interesting Issues of the Journal This study focuses on the alignment of business strategy and IT strategy in a case study approach. This study distinguishes the causes of alignment gaps in business strategy and IT strategy. After the study, the research suggests approaches on how to reduce alignment gaps. According to the study there two approaches to business and IT alignment, and these are1: budding a robust, business architecture and creating a separate, centralized IT department. The research examines three key issues. The first issues is on the present alignment gap between business and IT strategy, the second issue is regarding how to reduce the gap and third is ways on efficient alignment of IT and business strategy. Fortune 50 financial services companies consented to be the respondents of this study. I.2 Research Methodology Used The research methodology used in this study was qualitative. The Alignment of Business and IT strategy department participated in the interviews to be a representative of the Business IT and balance opinions. The respondents were 17 senior managers, 5 with knowledge in balanced, 3 with knowledge with IT and 2 with a business perspective. The interviews will be 90 minutes. All of these respondents agreed that there is an alignment gap between business strategy and IT strategy. The advantage of the method used by the study is that qualitative research is the attempt to gain an in-depth understanding of the meanings of the situation presented by informants, rather than the manufacturing of a quantitative measurement' of their characteristics or behavior by the researcher. This concern to reveal the subjective points of view of those being studied is common to ethnography, participant observation, and the various other strands of qualitative research. For many qualitative researchers the subjective beliefs of the people being studied are more important than the theoretical knowledge of the researcher. The methodology is often to ‘see through’ the eyes of those being studied. There are two considerations. First, no attempt is made to place the beliefs and behavior of the people being studied into an historical or structural context; it is considered sufficient to simply describe different forms of consciousness without trying to explain how and why they developed. The second one is the tendency to adopt an uncritical attitude to the beliefs and consciousness of informants, without considering their adequacy. The result is a form of relativism where everyone's testimony is accorded equal status, and no attempt is made either to explain or inform the development of consciousness2. The aim of qualitative analysis is a complete, detailed description. There are no attempts in the study made design frequencies to the linguistic features which are identified in the data, and rare phenomena receive the same amount of attention as more frequent phenomena. Qualitative analysis allows for fine distinctions to be drawn because it is not necessary to assign the data into a finite number of classifications. Ambiguities, which are inherent in human language, can be recognized in the analysis. The study has yielded some suggestions on how to reduce Alignment Gap. According to the respondents, the key strategy are as follows: a well-built business requires for strategic alignment, a tough business leader who was enthusiastic to discover and campaign a new idea, a evidently expressed idea, an awareness by the Business departments that IT is decisive to enabling the execution of business strategy, very brilliant Business and IT people should be delegated to the strategy alignment efforts and guts and dedication by all parties to deal with the issues that would arise with the introduction of any idea 3. In conclusion, the study yielded that alignment gap is existing between the business and the IT strategy. The main cause of this gap is deficiency in business strategy and communication. All organizations should have an IT strategy because it effectively integrates data among employees in the company and outside affiliates which will contribute to over-all performance level. The cost of establishing such a system is significant because of this that it can be easy to spend a large amount of money without knowing the benefits of the system to the long-term plans of the organization. II.Organizational Mechanisms for Successful S/IT Strategic Planning in the Digital Era II. 1 Information System Information is a vital resource for any company. Activities should be managed effectively to be able to have smooth operations for the company. Available information is organized into information systems which may be manual, technology assisted, computerized or a combination of all three 4 Thus, an information system requires planning to ascertain that it meets the business aims and objectives set by the management. Planning for information systems also involves determining the role of information technology in the company as well as establishing information requirements including the systems needed to provide information. Furthermore, it entails that an agreement in policy, priorities and development and implementation plans is set. Another interesting view point that the article presented is using e-business in a company. The advances in technology and the fast modernization of the world, in general, opened new and very promising avenues of business opportunities not just in an individual’s locale but also abroad. A lot of business-minded individuals from different countries with different nationalities and cultural orientation have and continuously defied the geographic boundaries that exist between continents. This is evident in the growing number of internationally-operating business firms all over the world run by entrepreneurs of varying race and culture. The information man has successfully rebelled against intercontinental borders and the challenge that confronts him the most, deals with how to fit and blend in the new cultural environment in which their businesses are situated. Most of the successful business endeavors depend greatly on good interpersonal communication and relationship between the service or product providers and their clients. Persuading customers on trying the offered services and products is only a start on putting up a successful entrepreneurial activity 5. Gaining the trust of the clients and maintaining patrons is very important to ideal business transaction flows. Making business transactions and communication within business organizations to promote good working relationships through enhanced knowledge and skills among employees will definitely put a business endeavor into a success wherever the location may be. E-business will change the employees rely on expert systems based knowledge management technologies can deliver the right information to the right person at the right time if it is known in advance what the right information is, who the right person to use or apply that information would be, and, what would be the right time when that specific information would be needed. A related challenge lies in tapping the tacit knowledge of executives and employees for informing the computational logic embedded in the e-business technology architectures. The knowledge management technologies facilitate employee interactions and communications. It was implemented with due consideration for the sociological and behavioral factors. II.2 Information Strategy The study provided substitute viewpoints on distinguishing and explaining key organizational mechanisms connected to IS/IT strategic planning, regarding mechanisms controlling the efficiency of IS/IT strategy. The study also discussed the models and frameworks on IS/IT strategy. IS/IT strategy also involves change management; Change management is basically defined as the formulation and assimilation of change in a methodical process6. The major objective of change management is the introduction of innovative means and systems in the work organization. Businesses must normally undergo change in order to evolve to a higher level of for instance, stability, management or production. Appointing a new head officer, for example, can greatly enhance his subordinates based on his management principles and personality. Organizational change is part of and a result of struggles between contradictory forces, also change management practice is related with endeavoring to manage their competing demands. To understand why and how to change organizations, it is first necessary to understand their structures, management and behaviour. These systems of ideas are crucial to change management in two respects. They provide models of how organization should be structured and managed. Then they provide guidelines for judging and prescribing the behaviour and effectiveness of individuals and groups in an organization. The modern organizations passed by the guild structures and as organizations grew larger, skills become increasingly fragmented and specialized and positions become more functionally differentiated7. It can be said that organizational change is one of the critical determinants in organizational success and failure. The focus of successful organizations is on customers and their needs, which includes investing in ways to improve sales and provide superior service to clients, and they do not forget that their customers and their customers’ needs underlie their organization’s existence. In addition, adapting factors crucial to the success of certain missions and the implementation of solutions to problems are common traits of a successful organization8 . The lack of such initiatives can throw an organization into confusion, being stuck in traditional practices that cannot solve or handle the current problems faced. Thus, the lack of such factors stresses the need for a strategic organizational change. It is basically a flexible strategic planning process as opposed to a static form of strategic planning. In conclusion, the frameworks IS/IT strategic planning, e-business, change and knowledge management are all important in the business strategy of an organization. Having a growing trend towards the creation of a global community it is becoming more and more necessary for us to find a balance between creating a truly integrated global society in lieu to the e-business system thinking and that remembering the needs of the local community. It is possible for such business to achieve a unified global e-business system thinking there just need to have a balance of the system and its appropriate process in terms of the local with the global, maintaining a local business environment that fosters community and unity among the business while it is easy to say that the world is only really moving towards a global e-business system thinking with the interrelation of culture and economy nowadays but it is fair to say that economic globalization has no effect on the business culture. The phrase ‘think globally, act locally’ should be the new call to arms of the citizen of the next millennia as it also holds new meaning for the future of our country and other countries. References Appelbaum, S H, St. Pierre, N, & Glavas, W (1998) Strategic Organizational Change: The Role of Leadership, Learning, Motivation and Productivity. Management Decision (36) 5, pp. 289–301 Broom, L.. (1990) Sociology: A Core Text with Adapted Readings. California: Wadsworth Inc. Gwo-Guang, Lee and Tong-JI Bai. (2003). Organizational Mechanisms for Successful IS/IT Strategic Planning in the Digital Era. Management Decision, (41)1. pp. 32-42. Hardy, C & Clegg S (1996) Handbook of organization studies. Sage: London. Johnsen, Justin, Ranthan, R.G. and Wen, H. Joseph. (2005) Alignment of Business Strategy and IT Strategy: A Case Study of a Fortune 50 Financial Services Company. Journal of Computer Information System. Read More