Shared Practice: WestJet - Aligning IT and Business Strategy - Assignment Example

WESTJET - ALIGNING IT AND BUSINESS STRATEGY School: WESTJET - ALIGNING IT AND BUSINESS STRATEGY As much as the use of information technology (IT) is very important for the survival of any modern business, Andriole (2012) noted the need to align IT with specific business strategy. Most certainly, reviewing the case of WestJet Airlines gives an indication that this is exactly what the company has done by relating information technology governance with corporate strategy (Munro & Khan, 2013).From the case, it can be said that to better help managers at WestJet to understand information technology in corporate strategy, the managers must be made a direct part of the process of managing information technology governance.

There are several ways this can be done but the recommendation of Andriole (2012) on decentralization is recommended. Through decentralized IT governance, each department and office of managers will have the independence to manage their own IT, thereby gaining deeper understanding into it.There are a number of ways the experience of WestJet can affect my own organization. The most crucial of this has to do with the role of planning in the institutionalization of any IT system. This is because once WestJet decided to have an entire plan for transforming IT, the expected transformation was indeed achieved.

According to Sabegh, Ali and Motlagh (2012), one of the best means an organization can align IT strategy with business strategy is by use of scenario analysis. This is field based analysis that requires that several scenarios are created about the strategic needs of the organization and how the professional application of IT can solve these needs (Jin and Drozdenko, 2010). Alternative to this is the use of value-based management. Once the alignment of IT with business strategy is ignored, the risk is that there will be inefficiency because the IT system cannot lead to expected changes and there will have to be the use of manual strategies in re-doing things.

ReferencesAndriole, S. J. (2012). Managing technology in a 2.0 world. IT Professional,14(1), 50–57.Jin, K. G., & Drozdenko, R. G. (2010). Relationships among perceived organizational core values, corporate social responsibility, ethics, and organizational performance outcomes: An empirical study of information technology professionals. Journal of Business Ethics, 92(3), 341–359.Munro, M., & Khan, S. (2013). WestJet Airlines: Information technology governance and corporate strategy (Ivey Publishing Case Study No. 9B13E020).

Retrieved from https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/pl/23289610/23289643/19566bfefe8dac6854ac46a8371e299eSabegh, J., Ali, M., & Motlagh, S. M. (2012). The role and relevance of IT governance and IT capability in business—IT alignment in medium and large companies.Business & Management Review, 2(6), 16–23.