Assessing Business-IT Alignment Maturity

Strategic alignment focuses on the activities that management performs to achieve cohesive goals across the IT (Information Technology) and other functional organizations (e.g., finance, marketing, H/R, manufacturing). Therefore, alignment addresses both how IT is in harmony with the business, and how the business should, or could be in harmony with IT. Alignment evolves into a relationship where the function of IT and other business functions adapt their strategies together. Achieving alignment is evolutionary and dynamic. It requires strong support from senior management, good working relationships, strong leadership, appropriate prioritization, trust, and effective communication, as well as a thorough understanding of the business and technical environments. Achieving and sustaining alignment demands focusing on maximizing the enablers and minimizing the inhibitors that cultivate alignment. The strategic alignment maturity assessment provides organizations with a vehicle to evaluate these activities. Knowing the maturity of its strategic choices and alignment practices make it possible for a firm to see where it stands and how it can improve. This paper discusses an approach for assessing the maturity of the business-IT alignment. Once maturity is understood, an organization can identify opportunities for enhancing the harmonious relationship of business and IT

Business and I/T Strategic Alignment:New Perspectives and Assessments

This research describes the results and findings from a two-year study of strategic alignment. Executives from over 300 firms representing 15 industries attended classes at IBM\u27s Advanced Business Institute during 1992-1994. They asked for help in assessing strategic alignment within their companies. A computer-based tool was used to evaluate alignment within these firms. Eight new alignment perspectives were validated, along with the four original perspectives from the Strategic Alignment Model. A pre-and post-assessment comparison suggests that executives often do not correctly recognize their firm\u27s alignment perspective and the role I/T can play in meeting business objectives. These findings emphasize the need to assess business and I/T using the alignment perspective approach to maximize the investment of I/T resources within the firm. Results also suggest that the relationship between these perspectives on title/function, industry and firm performance directly affects the firm\u27s alignment. Analysis of title/function indicates that I/T executives are concentrating on the business side (e.g.competitive potential and organization infrastructure fusion) while non-I/T executives are focusing more on technology (e.g. business-related perspectives such as technology potential and I/T infrastructure fusion). Industry analysis indicates that firms in certain industries tend to follow specific perspectives more often. Assessment of the impact of financial performance results in 7 factors that have varying degrees of impact on alignment. The factors provide management with a vehicle to predict the likelihood of achieving positive performance regarding a given factor. The computer-based assessment tool developed by Luftman and Brier (based on work by Henderson and Thomas, 1992) is used to assess the alignment of business and I/T in firms. The purpose of the model is to help firms identify areas of strength and weakness related to alignment. Information provided by the model enable firms to evaluate, achieve, and maintain alignment

Key Information Technology and Management Issues 2010–11: An International Study

The importance of the impact of IT for organizations around the world, especially in light of the global financial crisis, has amplified the need to provide a better understanding of the specific geographic similarities and differences of IT managerial and technical trends. Going beyond identifying these influential factors is also the need to understand the considerations for addressing them, in light of recognizing the respective local characteristics, especially when operating in a globally linked environment. By comparing and contrasting different geographies, this paper presents important local and international factors (e.g., management concerns, influential technologies, budgets/spending, organizational considerations) necessary to prepare IT leaders for the challenges that await them. The research is based on data from four geographic regions (United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America). The same questionnaire (although translated for the respective respondents), based on the lead authors of the well-respected and long-running Society for Information Management survey, was applied across geographies. This paper presents the major findings based on survey responses from 472 organizations (172 US, 142 European, 103 Asian, and 55 Latin) in mid-2010. The top five management concerns were: (1) business productivity and cost reduction; (2) IT and business alignment; (3) business agility and speed to market; (4) business process re-engineering; and (5) IT reliability and efficiency. The five most influential technologies were business intelligence, cloud computing, enterprise resource planning, Software as a Service/Platform as a Service, and collaborative tools

Enablers and Inhibitors of Business-IT Alignment

This paper provides insight into identifying areas that help or hinder business-IT alignment. Alignment focuses on the activities that management performs to achieve cohesive goals across the organization. The aim of this paper is to determine the most important enablers and inhibitors to alignment. The paper presents and analyzes the results of a multi-year study of strategic alignment. Data were obtained from business and information technology executives of over 800 firms representing 15 industries who attended classes addressing alignment at IBM\u27s Advanced Business Institute. The executives were asked to describe those activities that assist in achieving alignment and those which seem to hinder it. These enablers and inhibitors to alignment were then analyzed with respect to industry, to time, and executive position. The results indicate that certain activities can assist in the achievement of this state of alignment while others are clearly barriers. Achieving alignment is evolutionary and dynamic. It requires strong support from senior management, good working relationships, strong leadership, appropriate prioritization, trust, and effective communication, as well as a thorough understanding of the business environment. Achieving alignment demands focusing on maximizing the enablers and minimizing the inhibitors. The data show these factors to be constant over time and to be nearly identical for business executives and for IT executives. Furthermore, the data validate published anecdotal descriptions of enablers and inhibitors

Enhancing the measurement of information technology (IT) business alignment and its influence on company performance

Studies for over 30 years have consistently indicated that enterprise-level Business-Information Technology (IT) alignment is a pervasive problem. While significant progress has been made to understand alignment, research on IT alignment is still plagued by several problems. First, most alignment models approach alignment as a static relationship in contrast to analyzing the scope and variance of activities through which the alignment is (or can be) attained. Second, most alignment models are not founded on strong theoretical foundations. Third, because of their static view, these models do not guide how organizations can improve alignment. This study addresses these weaknesses using a capability-based lens. It formulates and operationalizes a formative construct rooted in the theory of dynamic capabilities and defines the scope and nature of activities that contribute to alignment. The construct identifies six dimensions promoting alignment: (1) IT-Business Communications; (2) Use of Value Analytics; (3) Approaches to Collaborative Governance; (4) Nature of the affiliation/partnership; (5) Scope of IT initiatives; and (6) Development of IT Skills. The construct measures are validated in terms of their dimensionality, item pool sampling, and the nomological and predictive validity. The research uses Partial Least Squares (PLS) to statistically validate the construct using a dataset covering over 3000 global participants including nearly 400 Fortune 1000 companies. All construct dimensions contribute significantly to the level of alignment and the construct shows strong nomological and predictive validity by demonstrating a statistically significant impact on firm performance. Scholars can leverage this research to explore additional activity-based constructs of IT-business alignment

Strategic Alignment Maturity: A Structural Equation Model Validation

The major US wireless operators already have announced their plans for evolution of their networks, but some uncertainties remain, such as emergence of new technologies (WiMAX and WLAN) and consolidation among operators (AT&T Mobile and Sprint Nextel). The paper proposes a real option based model for technology decisions and applies it to the US wireless industry as a case study. We also discuss what decisions are made, what the outcomes are, and how the options model is validated. The preliminary results show that the evolution of wireless network technologies between generations (intergenerations migration scenario) is desirable (a positive net option value), but not desirable (a negative net option value) within generations (intra-generation migration scenario)