Developing a taxonomy for the understanding of business and it alignment paradigms and tools

The alignment of information technology with business objectives tends to be a managerial priority in modern organisations. Thus, practitioners and researchers have proposed different approaches to assess this relationship, some following similar approaches whilst others proposing different ones. The variety of approaches proposed, however, has created confusion about the applicability and context in which these approaches can be used. Thus, aiming to tackle this challenge, this paper proposes a taxonomy that organises and compares studies of alignment assessment in terms of their theoretical constructors and their practical use. The taxonomy is build around two research sources: a) a review of the literature of alignment and b) a framework for comparing IS methodologies. The structure of the taxonomy permits insights into studies by means of six theoretical (objective, nature of strategy, paradigm, dimension, type of measurement, model) and six practical constructors (audience, scope, output, techniques, product, target). The taxonomy is then applied to six assessment studies. The benchmarking analysis of these helped to identify their theoretical basis and its practical use, and confirms the need for more practical mechanisms to assess alignment. Additionally, it becomes apparent that process perspectives and social understanding of alignment are the two main paradigms for alignment

A Framework to Support Practitioners in Evaluating Business-IT Alignment Models

Many business-IT alignment (BITA) models have been designed to support organizations in achieving, assessing and maintaining alignment between business and IT. These models focus on different components and emphasize different perspectives. This makes it difficult for practitioners to choose appropriate BITA models given organization at-hand. In this paper, an evaluation framework supporting practitioners to choose appropriate BITA models is presented. The framework was designed following design science as main research approach. The design process was based on literature and empirical studies. The literature study contributed in constructing a tentative version of the framework which was refined through an empirical study in 6 organizations. The final framework consists of 25 criteria categorized into four groups, and was demonstrated on six major BITA models showing its feasibility. Finally, the framework was evaluated by interviewing two business consultants and three CIOs from large-sized Swedish companies. The evaluation shows the framework having a complete set of criteria, but its usability and efficiency could be increased

Information strategy – research and reality

Strategic information planning and its output, the information strategy, are relevant topics in practice as well as in research. However, current research provides neither a clear nor a consistent picture regarding the concept of information strategy. While unsatisfactory in itself, research in such a state probably also fails to provide practitioners with guidance in developing information strategies. Since practitioners nevertheless widely discuss about information strategy e.g. in practitioner magazines and conferences, the question arises how practitioners understand information strategy. In exploratory interviews, we confirmed a disconnection between research and practice and identified five types of information strategy concepts: Information strategy is understood as a binding guideline, a departmental plan, a change agenda, the market strategy of the IT department or as a set of business unit overarching IT issues. The value of analysing these concepts in practice lies in revealing reasons for the disconnection between research and reality as well as potentially providing a fresh impetus for information strategy research in order to eventually improve the discontenting state of research

The Impact of Cloud-Based Digital Transformation on ICT Service Providers’ Strategies

The relationship between digital transformation and strategy formulation in the context of new digital technologies is emerging as a research area which is ripe for investigation. Recently, information system researchers have focused their attention on exploring this relationship in the context of cloud computing-based digital transformation. However, while extant research has explored this relationship from an adopter perspective, there is a dearth of research which has used an information and communications technology (ICT) service provision viewpoint. Taking the perspective of fifteen ICT service providers, this comparative case study elucidates how cloud-based digital transformation has impacted these organisations’strategy formulation processes. This paper provides the following insights. First, cloud-based digital transformation can positively impact the realisation of strategic objectives in terms of deliberate strategies such as agility and competitive positioning. Second, we present a process model which delineates how ICT service providers’strategy formulation was observed to be an emergent process, encompassing recursive cycles of business model experimentation and iteration, organisational learning and organisational adaptation, primarily as a result of the profound disruptive and innovative impact of cloud-based digital transformation

A Technological Alignment Diagnosis Test (TDAT) for SMEs

This paper presents a test that helps practitioners and researchers to measure ICT alignment in SMEs. Practitioners and researchers have suggested SMEs use ICT in a way less than optimal, wasting important and limited resources. Although researchers have proposed several instruments to solve this problem, they show operative problems when applied to SMEs. We developed and applied a test that helps SME managers to diagnose and measure the misalignment of ICT in their firms. Additionally, we propose the usage of two indicators of misalignment of ICT in SMEs. We applied this test to 34 SMEs of different regions in Chile with positive feedback on behalf of the SME owners. SMEs are less misaligned at a strategic level than at the process level (23.9% and 42.6% respectively). Also, the findings showed statistically significant differences of alignment between firms of different regions. An open question: whether it is possible that in SMEs the process-level alignment delivers more information than strategic level alignment