Strategic Integration of Information Technology and Business - Essay Example

Strategic Integration of Information Technology and Business ID # Table of Contents Strategic Integration of Information Technology and Business   4 How to Integrate Business Strategy with IT? 6 Business Leaders must be open and articulate too 6 Ongoing Governance 7 Implications and factors that Affect such Integration 7 Conclusion 9 9   11 Introduction Enterprise systems design, implementation, and integration are the most important areas of concentration in business and information technology (IT). In view of the fact that the information technology has become essential for the business organizations to run and improve their business processes hence companies of all sizes and levels are making use of information technology to better integrate with business associates and stakeholders, minimize expenditures, get strategic and competitive advantage over other competitors. Additionally, large size firms make changes in their business environments, processes and technologies as they struggle to turn out to be more integrated and break down customary silos of responsibility and information systems. At the present, the majority of business organizations use latest information technology based tools to perform business operations as they are well aware of the fact that computer systems and similar tools can help bring change in management and establishing their tasks, and that develop data integrity, minimize time and expenditures, reduce redundancy and produce information that fulfills the requirements of a variety of users. That is why the majority of businesses buy software that allows them to work better and smarter (Cameron; Chicago Business Improvements; Turban, Leidner and McLean). In addition, the efficient integration of information technology into approximately all business departments and areas all through industry dimensions has proved to be a major enabler to attaining a competitive market advantage. In view of the fact that when the business models develop, a business needs to analyze its customers’ buying and shopping behavior, the expansion in new marketplace entrants and competitors, the system’s time to reach marketplace, simplicity of maintainability and overall cost of having IT systems are some of the important aspects to consider in order to ensure effective business working and operational aims and objectives (Cameron; Chicago Business Improvements; Turban, Leidner and McLean). This basic purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of strategic integration of IT and business on an organization. In this scenario, this research attempts to answer some questions such as how to integrate business strategy with IT? This research will also analyze the major implications and factors that affect such integration. Strategic Integration of Information Technology and Business   The implementation of modern information technology based tools and systems is significant for a business, for the reason that they allow business organizations to attain the organizational strategic aims and objectives, business strategy as it is recognized as one of its major constituents for the technological change and the suitable management of technology is a major factor for taking effective competitive advantages. Without a doubt, in the context of a business, changes happen with growing speed and taking benefit of opportunities completely depend on the use of effective tools and technologies that is why a business needs to be competitive has to become accustomed rapidly to market and internal changes. To make this possible, the information technology should be an important element of the company, for example there has to be a strategic interdependence between the business and information technology especially the information systems. In addition, the information system of a business should support its business strategy because it is immediately one of the fundamental elements that the business designs and utilizes to attain its objectives and it is very important to be synchronized consequently explicit to others (Chicago Business Improvements; Bilgihan, Okumus and Nusair; Jean, Sinkovics and Kim; Benjamin and Morton). The investments in strategic integration of Information technology (IT) with business play a significant role in managing business operations. In fact, well-organized and appropriate implementation of modern and innovative IT applications can present a number of opportunities for improved business services to convene growing customer expectations and needs, better price control, most successful marketing plans and strategies, and long-drawn-out opportunities for the business organizations. Without a doubt, IT investments enhance organization’s efficiency, decrease their expenditures, and simultaneously increase value to the products and services offered by the business. Seeing the increasing advantages of information technology for the businesses, investments in IT tools and applications in business organizations have increased in the past few years. Many researchers have proved that IT integration potential is a most important IT resource which has a significant impact on various operations of business organizations such as supply chain process integration and business performance. In this scenario, the conclusions from various researches show that the IT integration potential has been a key element in the majority of researches. In this scenario, some associated ideas are IT aligned, and virtual or electronic integration (Bilgihan, Okumus and Nusair; Jean, Sinkovics and Kim). At the present, e-commerce (the most important IT implementation) has become a standard in the industry. For instance, in Canada more than 45 per cent of the business organizations are using an e - commerce system to carry out their business tasks. In this scenario, a wide variety of business tasks for instance customer communications, business transactions, environmental scanning and collaboration with business stakeholders and other organizations are currently carried out through the Internet and the world-wide-web (WWW). Though, the option of e-commerce facilities that organizations must adopt could be significant to their success. In this scenario, deployment and implementation challenges, the difficulty of technological selections, human resource training expenditures and the permanent updating of systems force the business organizations to target their e-commerce related tasks upon their business strategy (Raymond and Bergeron). How to Integrate Business Strategy with IT? Information technology has to be open as well as coherent. In this scenario, there many lacking guillotines from CIO or IT Directors regarding enhanced integration of business and IT strategy. Normally IT Management has to express that they have greater technical knowledge, stating that their company correspondents have a growing IT literacy in these day’s world. Consequently they forget the need to communicate their business worth over their technical capabilities. Additionally, the IT Department has to correspond to its own strategy in a way that is significant to the business. Given below are some of the useful methods and ways through which an organization can integrate business and IT: (Dann; Benjamin and Morton; PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.) Business Leaders must be open and articulate too One of the major aspects that need to be considered while integrating business strategy with IT is to develop a capability inside the business leader to be open and articulate the business policy in a better way. In addition, business leader needs to guide their staff and stakeholders for the sake of enhanced business and operational management. In this scenario, they need to effectively tackle some of the major business areas through strategy development that is well assessed and authorized by knowledgeable business leaders (Dann; Benjamin and Morton; PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.). Ongoing Governance Businesses will frequently assume a particular exercise targeted at supporting plans and objectives all through a new bushiness statement; preserving in a pyramid, cube or a number of similar icons. It is not immediately information technology resources those are important to deliverance of the business plan and all departments have to be dragged in line with the determined business priorities. To make sure this is becoming a governance procedure is necessary (Dann; Benjamin and Morton; PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.). Implications and factors that Affect such Integration This section outlines the major implications and factors that affect the integration of business strategy with IT: (Benjamin and Morton; Dann; PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.; Gopinathan) The Need to see into the Future The emergence of latest technologies can have significant influence on demand for on hand products and commodities. For instance, nanotechnology is able to theoretically make it possible to produce foodstuff synthetically and it can influence the marketplace for cereals. In this scenario, it is essential for companies to pay attention to possible future technology based developments. Aligning Technology with Business Objectives Existing procedures for supporting technology through business objectives distinguish misalignments "after the event" as it is hard to make changes. In this scenario, new methods and procedures are required to perform this previous to commitments are made to particular technologies and their implementations. The company aims themselves might have to be customized as a product of the future visualization. Creation of Technology Roadmaps New technology application roadmap recognizes technology systems to be adopted for attaining business objectives. Their formation entails recognizing available and future requirements and the technologies (comprising rising technologies) that are able to convince these requirements. In the procedure, awareness will be aligned on new IT technology developments and their business influence. Risks Management Latest technologies normally create a dilemma. Alternatively, they open up company prospects. If these are not hit through us, market competitors might achieve a permanent benefit. Conversely, as yet unconfirmed technologies might be unsuccessful owing to diverse factors, comprising regulatory aspects and issues. Change Management Advancements of technology will certainly cause technology and business based changes in business procedures and employee roles. Exceptional change management techniques require being developed and sustained as a fraction of technology and business integration. Conclusion This paper has discussed various concepts associated with strategic integration of information technology and business. Without a doubt, information technology has become essential for business organizations. At the present, businesses compete on the basis of latest technologies. However, these technologies should be strategically aligned to business processes. This paper has discussed the implications of integrating information technology with business. The implications and factors that affect such integration are also presented in this research. This paper has also suggested the ways to deal with the issues in this integration process. Works Cites Benjamin, Robert I. and Michael S. Scott Morton. "Information Technology, Integration, And Organizational Change." 1986. Bilgihan, Anil, et al. "Information technology applications and competitive advantage in hotel companies." Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Volume 2 Issue 2 (139-153): 2011. Cameron, Brian H. "Enterprise systems education: new directions & challenges for the future." SIGMIS CPR 08 Proceedings of the 2008 ACM SIGMIS CPR conference on Computer personnel doctoral consortium and research. New York: ACM, 2008. 119-126. Chicago Business Improvements. The Integration of Information technology in Business strategy. 2010. 27 November 2012 . Dann, Terry. Bringing Business and Information Technology together- Strategy Integration. 2012. 22 November 2012 . Gopinathan, T. Technology and Business Management Integration. 06 November 2010. 22 November 2012 . Jean, Ruey-Jer “Bryan”, Rudolf R. Sinkovics and Daekwan Kim. "Information technology and organizational performance within international business to business relationships: A review and an integrated conceptual framework." International Marketing Review, Volume 25 Issue 5 (2008): 563-583. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Information Technology How to complete the M&A integration process, minimize disruptions, and achieve desired synergies. 2009. 27 November 2012 . Raymond, Louis and Francois Bergeron. "Enabling the business strategy of SMEs through e-business capabilities: A strategic alignment perspective." Industrial Management & Data Systems, Volume 108 Issue 5 (2008): 577-595. Turban, Efraim, et al. Information Technology for Management: Transforming Organizations in the Digital Economy. New York: Wiley, 2005.   Read More