BUSINESS STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT

Running head: IT-BUSINESS STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
Factors Influencing the Level of IT-Business Strategic Alignment
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

IT-BUSINESS STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT1
Table of Contents
1. Introduction:............................................................................................................................3
1.1 Background:......................................................................................................................3
1.2 Problem Statement:...........................................................................................................4
1.3 Aims and Objectives:........................................................................................................5
2. Research Methodology:...............................................................................................................5
2.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................5
2.2 Outline of the Method:...........................................................................................................6
2.3 Philosophy of the Research:..................................................................................................6
2.4 Approach of the Research:.....................................................................................................7
2.5 Research Design:...................................................................................................................8
2.6 Methods for the Collection of Data:......................................................................................9
2.6.1 Data Source:..................................................................................................................10
2.6.2 Techniques for data analysis:........................................................................................10
3. Literature Review:.....................................................................................................................11
3.1 Definition of the terms used................................................................................................11
3.1.1. Information Technology and Information System......................................................11
3.1.2 Strategic management...................................................................................................13
3.1.3 IT and business alignment............................................................................................13
3.2 Impact of IT governance in business.................................................................................14

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3.3 Importance of the Organizational Culture on Business.......................................................15
3.4 Effects of information technology skills in Business:.........................................................17
3.5 Impact of the Information Technology skills in the development of the business strategy 18
3.6 Gap in the Literature:...........................................................................................................20
4. Research Model and Hypothesis:..............................................................................................21
5. Questionnaire:............................................................................................................................22
6. References:................................................................................................................................24

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1. Introduction:
1.1 Background:
Alignment of the information technology with the business strategies has been one of the
top priority of the people who are involved in the day to day practise of the business. Since
the development of information system in the business sector, information technologies have
gained enormous prominence as well. Technologies have advanced so much that we are
incapable of handling the mass of data on our own in any business. Starting from the
calculations in the business to the process of decision making everything is completely or
partially dependent upon the information system or technology. IT Business alignment is the
term used to define a connection between the IT Business and the strategic business
(Luftman, Lyytinen & Zvi, 2017). The process of strategic alignment is used to support the
strategies taken up by the business which in return helps in maximizing the impact of the
other processes that are taken up by the company like the investments in the Information
Technologies, business processes, and integration of the technologies to the business
processes. With these technologies working together in the system, the business is benefitted
with extra benefits in the growth of the revenue, competitiveness and lastly increased
profitability in the business.
This was indeed thought raising as numerous scholar started investigating the matter that
how alignment of the strategy in the business can be improved with the intervention of the
Information technology? With this question on mind, they started a thorough research in this
field and came up with numerous other factors that can affect the system.
Firstly the information technology in itself is a vast subject. The diversity in the
information technology and the information system cannot just be discussed and identified.

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Each and every information technology has more than a hundred application in the business.
Not only that the information technology is advancing with every passing day and
enhancement of the technology is giving rise to more application. At present one of the most
talked about technology in the field of business is the Big Data Analytics. Digitization of the
systems of information has resulted in the collection of a huge amount of data in the system.
Manual databases are no longer effective in this case as most of the data that are gathered are
raw and unstructured source processing them manually is not only time consuming but also
prone to human error. With the technology like the HADOOP, BDA can be implemented in
the system which is used for the storage of a huge amount of countless structured and
unstructured data in the system for the purpose of the business. The BDA is capable of
Structuring, Sorting and processing the data without human intervention and helps in a very
crucial process of decision making in the system. This is equivalent to the job of more than
10 employees in the organization. Similarly there are numerous others emerging
technologies present which are responsible for the development of the business sector by
segregating with the business strategic management system. The following research proposal
is regarding the Factors that are influencing the level of IT-Business Strategic Alignment
(Ghildyal & Chang, 2017).
Key Words: IT-Business alignment, strategic competitive advantage, Information system,
strategic management.
1.2 Problem Statement:
If we consider the contemporary world, most of the business organisations are data
driven. Without the help of the technologies, dealing with these data are impossible.
Considering the ever changing need of the market, the advancing technologies helps in

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improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the business in the organisation. However
important the information technologies are for the business processes and the organization, a
strategic planning is always encouraged for the improvement of the business. Tactically
aligning the information technology with the business strategies may be useful for the
improvement and the enhancement of the organization. However there are numerous factors
for the success that has been identified, there are certain issues that are identified in the
system as well. This is research is undertaken such that the people are more familiar with the
factors that are actually influencing the strategic alignment of the business sector with the
Information technology along with being aware of drawbacks as well.
1.3 Aims and Objectives:
The Aim of the research is identify the factors that are influencing the strategic alignment
of the business with the information technology in contemporary industrial sector.
Objectives:
1. To identify the importance of the style of type management in the business sector.
2. To identify the importance of Organizational culture on the business of an
organization.
3. To identify the effects of Information technology skills in the organisational
business.
4. To identify the impact of the IT Governance in the Business.
5. To observe the impact of IT in the strategic direction of the business.
2. Research Methodology:
2.1 Introduction: