Bridging the It Business Alignment Chasm

Bridging the IT Business Alignment Chasm

Bridging the IT Business Alignment Chasm

FINAL PROJECT

A K Singh

Words

Total: 2828

Excluding Title/Bibliography: 2623

A K Singh

Words

Total: 2828

Excluding Title/Bibliography: 2623

Strategic IT: Organizational Strategy

Summer 2011

Strategic IT: Organizational Strategy

Summer 2011

Abstract

Many a times businesses are not able get most benefits out of IT because business and IT goals are not aligned, and both speak different language. This paper describes some of the important causes of gap between business and IT priorities and provides guidance on how to align IT and business, and bridge the gap between them.

Contents

Abstract 1

Introduction 3

The IT Business Chasm 4

IT Business Alignment Models 8

Organizational Structure based model 8

Purpose based alignment model 10

Business Architecture Model 12

Conclusion 14

Bibliography 15

Introduction

Over the last few decades, with rise in computing, IT has become a key provider of tools for business growth, productivity, automation, and creating new business niches and models. There is continuous feedback from businesses about its needs and opportunity to technology and from technology innovations and advances to IT. In a way IT and business have been coevolving rapidly for quite some time now. The fast pace of evolution of IT and competitiveness and uncertainty in the world of business usually results in different priorities for both IT and businesses. IT loses its value to the business because of such misalignments, and when some alignment happens, businesses become euphoric about them. As we can see from the quote below, a proper understanding of the stakeholder’s priority creates a win-win situation for everyone. It got appreciated for solving the business issue, and business got the value from IT. But such understanding is not common in the business world.

“As soon as our storage team explained to our SAP team that we could...