Business-enterprise-systems alignment: a preliminary roadmap for small and medium enterprises

Abstract

The issue of alignment between Enterprise Systems (ES) and the overall business strategy could be considered as one of the main challenges in the Information Systems/Information Technology (IS/IT) literature. Given the complexity of an ES, it is of concern that the literature indicates that firms often and still tend to underestimate the risks for not effectively managing the issue of alignment between the business and its Enterprise Systems, let alone having a coherent strategy to achieve the desired level of alignment. It is the intent of this paper to analyze key aspects that would contribute to the effort of the organization in ensuring that alignment would be attained in ES implementation, particularly in the SMEs context. Based on the understanding of these key aspects, a "roadmap" for business and ES would then be proposed