Conceptualising IT Consulting Services: An Approach from IT-Business Alignment Models and Design Sciences

The constant integration of business and manufacturing processes is a difficult task that can be facilitated through IT consulting services. However, if these services do not adequately address the problems of alignment between IT and business, efficiency in integration can be seriously compromised. This article presents a methodology that systematises IT consulting services for the acquisition, incorporation, and integration of IT elements in an organisation in such a way that is aligned with the business and by contemplating its contribution to the value chain. The proposal is based on a set of rules, methods, guidelines, patterns, and artefacts that define a flow of action and implement a strategy that provides a consulting solution as a final result. Likewise, a method is proposed to evaluate the applied methodology and the solution obtained. For validation of the method, a set of business processes based on a case study applied in several Cuban companies related to the food sector has been defined to help adjust the parameters and corroborate the generalisation of the proposal. This research allows to ensure the alignment of business and IT to avoid the failure in the incorporation of IT to companies. It also analyzes and establishes the ideal artefacts for IT consulting and generates an IT consulting methodology that makes the analysis of consultants more robust in order to guarantee the success of incorporating IT into companies.This work has been supported by grant TIN2016-78103-C2-2-R and University of Alicante [GRE14-02 and SmartUniversity2017]