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What is Alignment?

A recent survey rated “alignment of business and IT as the top priority of IT executives for the last 4 years running”. A Business & IT Alignment practice provides ways to consistently obtain optimum business value from IT and IT Service Management (ITSM). It includes proven approaches, such as; balanced scorecards, key performance indicators and ROI to monitor IT value. However, it is the life-cycle approach of continuous measurement, analysis, planning and management action that ensures business benefits are realized. If an alignment practice is to succeed it must continually integrate process, organization, knowledge and technology. It must also provide linkage between strategic business goals and the business layers (e.g. Investor and executive needs, business operations, application and infrastructure services and IT Service Management).

The basic steps include; 1) completing a business and IT strategy with representation from key areas of the company, 2) planning the actions required to implement the strategy 3) identifying key performance indicators and relationships between the outcomes and behaviors, and 4) establishing a measurement program that continually measures the behavior indicators and outcomes so that cause and effect relationships will be recognized and proactive management can occur.

What benefits should we expect from a successful Alignment Practice?

The expectations are highest for companies that are experiencing high growth, competition, lack of skilled resources and significant changes in organization, process and technology. Quite simply, a Business & IT Services Alignment practice should facilitate success in these areas. A commitment to an ongoing alignment practice will yield results in the long term more consistently. These results include improved revenues, market share and profits. However, these results may take years to surface and the reason for the improvement could be occluded by other...