How to Achieve IT Business Alignment? Investigating the Role of Business Process Documentation in US and German Banks

It is increasingly acknowledged that generating value from IT requires strategic and operational IT business alignment. But it remains difficult to give concrete suggestions on what drives alignment in day-to-day business. Thorough process documentation might enable cross-departmental transparency and thereby serve as antecedent of operational alignment. We suggest that business process documentation is a straightforward and actionable antecedent of operational IT business alignment. Using data from 200 US and German banks it is shown that indeed documentation strongly drives operational alignment, but surprisingly only in US banks. The implications and avenues for further research on operational alignment are discussed

Strategic alignment of information technology and business

Dissertation Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science Engineering (Industrial Engineering) University of the Witwatersrand 2016The importance of information technology (IT) strategic alignment with organisational goals is considered and discussed. Internal and external factors that affect this alignment are identified. A method to strategically align business and IT is developed. A case study methodology was used, which relied on both quantitative and qualitative methods. The focus of the case study is the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Aeronautical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. The research identified current IT alignment barriers and the special requirements of this domain by conducting interviews, using questionnaires and focusing on relevant strategic documentation. Data from the case-study environment was used to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The researcher identified a lack of commitment on the part of management both within the School and in the broader University to the University’s strategic objectives as the main obstacle to IT and business strategic alignment. A revised IT strategic plan is developed for the School.MT 201

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

Aligning a Service Provisioning Model of a Service-Oriented System with the ITIL v.3 Life Cycle

Bringing together the ICT and the business layer of a service-oriented system (SoS) remains a great challenge. Few papers tackle the management of SoS from the business and organizational point of view. One solution is to use the well-known ITIL v.3 framework. The latter enables to transform the organization into a service-oriented organizational which focuses on the value provided to the service customers. In this paper, we align the steps of the service provisioning model with the ITIL v.3 processes. The alignment proposed should help organizations and IT teams to integrate their ICT layer, represented by the SoS, and their business layer, represented by ITIL v.3. One main advantage of this combined use of ITIL and a SoS is the full service orientation of the company.Comment: This document is the technical work of a conference paper submitted to the International Conference on Exploring Service Science 1.5 (IESS 2015