IT Alignment: A Critical Analysis

The assignment content discusses the importance of aligning information technology (IT) with business strategy to achieve organizational success. It highlights the need to identify the suitable picture of IT and business strategy by focusing on both positive and negative aspects. The essay emphasizes that the individual critical analysis of each point provides suitable assistance in an appropriate direction. The roles and responsibilities of IT and business strategy are defined differently, and their execution is considered a priority. The assignment also identifies better ways to manage global alignment and highlights the requirement of basic tools for IT and business strategic alignment.

Introduction: The market of competition and strategic aspects are improving with a rapid rate.
In this scenario, the requirement of organizational strategy matters a lot. The organizational
strategy will be helpful in opening a path for the growth and improvement in the right direction.
Apart from this, the criterion for the transformation is also required in an appropriate way. For
pursuing transformation, it is essential to follow the strategic information system in a suitable
mode. There are various aspects identified for the organization strategy and to pursue these
aspects, suitable coordination is essential between the IT and the business strategy.
The alignment of the business and IT is identified as the most appropriate combination, when
managed in the right direction. In general words, it is an advanced concept of the business
processing in which the information technology is capable to achieve advanced objectives related
to the business. Apart from this, the combination should also be capable in generating suitable
output as per the requirement and need of the specific business.
The essay shown below mainly relates to the critical analysis of an alignment of information
system and organizational strategy, different aspects related to the organizational strategy and the
fundamental concepts of information system in the organization.
A basic approach towards IT and Business Strategy alignment: The organizational strategy
is identified as the method in which different type of functions and processes are identified for
managing the suitable aspects related to the business. To understand the basic approach towards
IT and business strategy alignment, it is essential that the different types of organizational
strategy need to be analyzed. This will help in making research process easy and suitable. The
organizational strategy is mainly categorized into three major forms which are named as the
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business strategy, transformational strategy and operational strategy. All these three strategies
will be helpful in providing suitable assistance to the business opportunities. In this essay, the
main focus is mainly switched towards the business strategy in contrast to the IT (Valorinta,
2011).
The wide range of ideas and information are generated for the IT and business strategy
alignment. According to the research of articles and journals, the alignment of IT with business
strategy is successful in providing suitable assistance to the competitive as well as strategic
advantages. During an alignment, the IT is successful in providing assistance to improve
competition, efficiency, operations, fixed asset management and other aspects too.
The second basic idea related to the IT and business strategy is that the approach assists in
fulfilling the demands of the customers in a proper way if they are aligned in a proper way. The
plotting of the customers’ demands and needs can be managed with the help of IT (Madewell,
2016). It will also be helpful in providing suitable assistance in a definite direction. The
environmental opportunities and the unwanted risks related to the business can also be identified
at an initial level, so that it can be removed as per the suitable directions.
The development of business is identified as the important output that is generated by the
alignment of IT and business strategy. It is successful in generating appropriate business output
and also provides support in carrying the business in a positive track. The business decisions can
get taken and accomplished with the help of information technology (Scott, 2013). These
decisions are strategy, architecture, priority and management. There are various suitable
processes by which the process of alignment can be defined in a suitable way.
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Another basic evidence and idea about the IT and business strategy alignment is that it may help
in providing suitable changes of transformation in the form of E- Business. The level of
executing the business is actually improving. The criteria for performing apposite trading are
changing with a rapid speed and appropriate assistance related to the business performance is
defined at a primary level. The profit generation is getting higher and the financial aspects are
also getting strengthened in a simultaneous manner.
But with these positive aspects, the negative aspects are also defined for the basic ideas and
approaches. For the suitable execution, the basic ideas need coordinated and simultaneous
approach to reach the target specified by an organization. There are various examples of different
organizations defined that are not benefited by the IT and strategic analysis. This is due to an
unorganized approach adopted by the organization. Another negative aspect relates to the
management aspects which are related the IT and business strategy. For managing the business
in a correct direction, there is a requirement of a professional and qualified team which can be
managed by defining the definite standards (Osborn, 2013).
The negative aspects for the business are also that there is a lack of awareness and assumptions
among the organization and its employees in the context of the IT processing. The awareness is
identified as the major tool which can help in framing proper criteria for the execution. So, it is
essential to create awareness on the basic ideas & approaches and also needs to manage the
specific policies for generating the awareness. By the help of this, the negative perspectives can
be changed into the positive ones.
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It is essential to put forward the positive approach in a suitable direction to manage IT and
business strategy in the appropriate mode, to achieve the specific goals and objectives
(Combrinck, 2010).
Concepts of Information system: The fundamental concepts of the information system portray
both in negative and positive forms. It is essential to provide a critical discussion properly,
because the information system can be executed both in the positive and negative way to execute
the processing in a suitable flow.
The concept of an information system in contrast to the strategic management is wide and more
expressive. It helps in providing suitable guidance for the completing of the task. The
information system is helpful in providing the most appropriate aspects to manage the
organization and the basic tasks related to it. But, to understand the concept of an information
system on an international level, the global system is essential to be identified.
Identification of an information System on the basis of the global system: The above
paragraph is successful in defining the concept of an information system in a suitable way. But,
the major concern is the identification of IT and business strategy. The alignment of both the
aspects on a local level is quite easy to coordinate in contrast to the international level. The
global development is analyzed in various areas of the organization. With an alignment of IT and
business strategy, it could become easier to provide suitable grounds to the modern aspects and
competitiveness equally. On the global level, the enterprise level planning for an improvement
may also be done properly. One of the positive aspects which is identified is that IT and business
strategic aspect is identified as the lever for development which helps in improving the
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organizational process on an international level. There are also various models that are defined
for the development of the organization on an international level. These models are named as the
EA Framework, TOGAF and many others. This will assists in defining the major growth
perspectives for an improvement and development.
The positive perspective of IT alignment is that it may help in redefining and restructuring the
actual scenario too. By this, the inappropriate condition is converted into an appropriate one. At
the global level, the developmental aspects are mainly defined when the goals and targets are
achieved in a suitable way. To manage the perspectives, the IT and business strategic alignments
have to be concerned with the most appropriate aspects which are helpful in pursuing the suitable
targets too. These aspects or elements are mentioned as the IT business governance, suitable
usage of business analysis, appropriate approaches towards the collaborative process and the
development of the IT skills. By applying these, the required target can be achieved initially
(Broadbent, et al., 1999).
There are various models and aspects also that are defined positively to manage the alignments
between the IT and business strategy alignment. These models are named as the strategic
alignment maturity model (SAM) and structural equation Modeling (SEM). Both these models
also play a prominent role in defining the major business perspectives on a global level (Chevez,
2010).
In the above section, the basic aspects related to study of IT and business strategy alignment on a
global basis are identified. All these are evaluated in the positive form. But, there are some
aspects which are defined in negative form also. The IT and business strategy alignment is not
such successful, because still some of the organizations are not familiar with the concept of IT
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and its usage in the suitable and right direction. The coordination becomes tough day by day. The
business executives are not trying to identify the suitable business opportunity on a global level.
Due to this, they are not able to frame the appropriate usage plan for the information technology
in the organization. On the basis of global development of new aspects, the opportunities are not
identified, authorized, globalized and implemented on a suitable basis simultaneously (Hwang, et
al., 2011).
Development of Service Orientation of IT: The service orientation of IT is mainly helpful in
defining the services in a suitable mode. The service orientation mainly helps in providing
innovative services to the organizations in the form of opportunities. In the past days, the
services provided are more common and less defined. But, due to the formation of the Business
Process Redesign (BPR), it becomes easier to restructure the categorization of the services on a
wide level. There are various statistics and data which will be helpful in highlighting the
different forms of the restructuring and rephrasing. The service orientation will support in
managing the suitable flow of work in the positive direction. The BPR is considered as the
positive aspect of the service orientation, which is helpful in transforming the particular
organization. The strategic IT and the business strategy act as the catalyst to make suitable
changes in the ongoing transformations. The business process challenges can also be removed
with the help of service orientation related to IT (Management, 2013). The other tool named as
the IT infrastructure tool will be helpful in providing suitable assistance for the technical and
managerial aspects. It may simultaneously help in providing appropriate guidance for the
reliability, coordination and support. These all aspects provided by the IT infrastructure assists in
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supporting the developmental aspects. The wide range of innovative services are also specified
on a preliminary level (Kramer, 2005).
Apart from these positive services, the negative perspective of the service orientation and its
related tools are also provided. For making an improved and well defined infrastructure
approach, it is essential that the suitable graph should be plotted for the wide range of services.
The team which is indulged in providing services should be technically framed and also capable
in providing the most desired services to the customers. The strategic approach should also be
developed and well defined, by which an appropriate assistance can be provided to manage the
IT and business alignment with each other and in a coordinated manner.
Critical evaluation of strategic Approach: The IT and business alignment is identified as the
major area for discussion for past many years. The different perspectives related to the alignment
are observed in the organizations. In fact, various transformations and changes are also observed
while identifying the suitable impact of alignment on performance. The discussion of the impact
can be identified both by the organization & its performance separately, and individual criteria
are also discussed on the major level.
The impact on the firm or organization can be analyzed in the critical manner. The positive
impact of IT and business strategy is that it is successful in providing consistent and constant
aspects to the firm, so that it can able to develop its standards in defining the parameters. The
formulation, integration and coordination of the organization is highly influenced by the
alignment of IT and business strategy in a simultaneous manner. It is also identified that the
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alignment of both the architecture will also help in managing the suitable environmental aspects
related to the organization. Other than this, the platform for stable growth is also designed for the
success in the correct direction. The platform should be provided in the planned and sequential
manner (Bharadwaj, 2000). According to Huvang, suitable resources defined in the IT will be
supportive in managing the flexible structure and strategic aspects are also getting improved
appropriately. But, sometime these impacts also create a negative impact on the management
and flow of the process. To manage this negative impact, it is essential that the effective
technique and quality management aspects should be framed that will help in providing suitable
assistance in the right direction.
Similarly, the impact of IT and strategic alignment is also identified in context to the
performance for an organization. The major performance aspects that are identified are similar to
the customer orientation. In the positive aspect, customer orientation is properly managed if
executed in the proper direction with an appropriate flow. These will also improve the exchange
of the suitable views related to the customers. With this alignment, the organizational human
resource will also get improved in a suitable manner. The process related to the human resource
are also managed in a suitable direction to provide proper accessibility. Other than this, the
performance indicators are also considered on a wide level, which can help in supporting and
defining the suitable growth perspectives in the suitable way. But, performance may degrade or
suffer by the negative impact, when the resources are not clear for their future perspectives. The
fluctuations in the performance indicators and continuous changes are also considered as the
negative perspectives in contrast to the IT and strategic alignment (Chan & Reich, 2007).
Apart from this aspects discussed above, the individual aspects can also be defined which are
helpful in explaining the impact of IT and business strategy alignment. The resilience of the
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organization, managing aspects of leadership and management of competitive advantage are
identified as some of the areas on which the IT and business strategic alignment can provide
positive and negative feedback. In contrast of resilience for the organization, the alignment of
both will be helpful in creating suitable infrastructure aspects by which the organizations can
able to generate suitable profit in a right direction. To face the major difficulties, the alignment is
capable of providing appropriate assistance. In fact, the different models are also defined to
manage the inappropriate condition related to the organization (Schiller, 2015). The competitive
aspects are also influenced by the alignment of IT and business alignment in a suitable way. To
promote the internal and external competition in a suitable way, the strategy for the competition
is also defined which will further help in providing suitable assistance in the correct manner. The
negative part is that the ways and criteria for the competition is different for different
organizations, so the individual identity is not easily managed and issues are generated on the
wide landscape (Chebrolu & Ness, 2013).
The aspects related to the leadership are also influenced by the alignment of IT and business
strategy. Both the negative and positive criteria are observed at a proper level. The positive
aspects are that the leadership skills will be enhanced after observing the major changes due to
alignment of both the aspects and the negative perspective is that various assumptions &
approaches are planned for the leadership style and its specific promotions (Grant, et al., 2010).
By assuming the different areas and aspects defined above, the suitable picture of IT and
business strategy is identified in a proper form. Both, the negative and positive aspects need to be
focused for the suitable assumptions.
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Conclusion: The IT and business strategy is identified as a wide field of discussion. There are
other strategies too, that are mentioned in contrast to the IT. Apart from this short discussion on
critical analysis, there are other topics of discussion considered for the evaluation. The essay is
helpful in delivering major aspects related to the critical discussion in a possible manner. The
hidden and the unseen areas also need to be covered in the essay, through which both the positive
and negative approaches can be recognized on an initial level. The individual critical analysis of
each point is successful in providing suitable assistance in an appropriate direction. The different
roles and responsibility of IT and business strategy is defined differently and the execution of all
these aspects are still considered on priority. The critical evaluation on a global basis is also
helpful in providing suitable assistance for both the aspects on an international level. Better ways
to manage the global alignment are also identified with the suitability analysis in the correct way.
The requirement of the basic tools related to IT and business strategic alignment is successful in
delivering the positive and negative aspects related to the organizations.
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References
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