IS and Business Strategy Alignment Report for COM7001 Module

This report examines the critical alignment between Information Systems (IS) and business strategy, addressing key elements for online environment creation, brand recognition, and industry partnerships. It explores the benefits and issues of implementing digital solutions, including cost reduction, improved efficiency, and customer experience, while considering employee pushback and the need for expertise. The report further analyzes the role of distributed systems, cloud computing, and data sets in enhancing business processes and decision-making. Finally, it outlines long-term strategies for small businesses, emphasizing customer needs, efficiency, competitor acquisition, market size expansion, and marketing scope to ensure sustainable growth and success. The report provides a comprehensive overview of these crucial business aspects.

Running head: IS AND BUSINESS STRATEGY ALIGNMENT
COM7001
IS AND BUSINESS STRATEGY ALIGNMENT
Name of student
Name of university
Author’s note:

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IS AND BUSINESS STRATEGY ALIGNMENT
Answer of question 1:
The product presentation, service, website design and the efficient marketing are the
crucial elements for the creation of an online environment that rivals majorly the online and
offline platform. Moreover, excessively aggressive promotions of sale and the creation of
brand instantaneous is not solely the crucial business approach, which would impart itself to
accomplishment of the brand. The company could establish these following approaches for
achieving the goals of growing to the highest point possible and then achieve the major
growth, that are:
Creation of convincing value proposition for the consumers, sponsors as well as the
advertisers: With the establishment of information system in the organisation, the business
would aim to achieve the major goals of the organisation that is striving to offer the
unmatched experience and the facilities that would make this organisation as the crucial
destination for the customers. It comprises the possession of the most enhanced quality
products that are available for the sale, the personalised experience of shopping, the extensive
content of the interest as well as the community for providing the required encouragement for
the exchange of the ideas and information.
Building the robust brand recognition: The Company would be increasingly endorsed
all through the world and the internet with the use of information system within the
organisation. The strategy of the company is promoting, advertising and then increasing the
brand equity and the visibility through the services that are provided by the company and the
variety of the techniques of marketing that includes the online advertising, digital marketing
and the promotions along with the listings with the crucial nation search engines, the ongoing
public associations and then evolving the effective business associations as well as
partnerships that would help in driving the traffic to the website. It could be considered that

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the company would gain significantly from strategies of the business by growing to be one of
the main companies for establishing the central position. It would result in the broad person
to person marketing that would drive significant traffic.
Developing the crucial industry tactical partnership: The plan of the company to
develop several strategic relationships for the quick building of the credibility and the traffic
to the branded website. It could include the major partnerships with the major search engines
as well as the international community websites. In the beginning phase, the contracts are
predicted to be increasingly revenue partaking deals from which the company would segment
the revenues that are produced from the traffic that is funded by the tactical partners.
Providing the compelling presentation of the content as well as the products for
encouraging repeated visits: The company would develop the robust marking message that
would extend to each aspect of the website and then truly offer the most enhanced
involvement for the customers. The design of the website would improve the methods by
which the customer does business with the organisation.
Answer of question 2:
It is suggested that with the implementation of the digital solutions in the
organisation, it would be able to provide the improved services to the customers. But there
are some issues that are to be considered prior implementation of the digital solutions in the
organisation. Some of the benefits of pursuing the digital strategies based on the digital
solutions are:
 Reduction of costs: The optimisation of the business technology and the operations
around the digital technology denotes saving significant cost per transactions and the
increased sales.

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 Improved efficiency: The main intention of the business in the present times is the
customer satisfaction. The customer satisfaction could be considered as the major benefit
that would be gained with the implementation of the digital solutions but the improved
efficiency is the significant drive for the digital transformation. The organisations are
shifting towards the manual interventions as the effectiveness is initiating to grow to
become the critical phrase. When the manual processes are replaced with the electronic
versions, there is significant quicker process flow that is implemented and therefore
making the efficiency of the organisation significantly high.
 Improved customer experience: The customer satisfaction is of significant importance, as
for an organisation, the customers are the sole source of revenue. For this particular
reason, if any organisation require the measuring of their success, it is significantly
important to comprehend quality of the customer satisfaction and all the procedures that
are utilised for arriving at any ultimate verdict. It has been considered that with the
improved satisfaction levels for the customers, the increased the digital transformation
success rate for the organisation.
 Improved decision making: It has been considered that the business thrive in the business
world when the managers of the business possess the sufficient, well planned data for
making the sound decisions, it displays the success rate, the suitability of the brand and
the brand name of that business.
 Increased profitability: The digital solutions in the business strategy of the organisations
could be best measured with the profit margins at end of any year. With the increased
profits, the improved would be the major motivation of all the employees and
increasingly significant would be trust of customers within any market of the business.
When the business gains the improved profits, increased decisions could be undertaken

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towards the improvement of efficiency in the business processes that could be geared
towards the improvement of the customer service.
Even though the business could gain significant benefits with the implementation of
the business strategies with the digital solutions, there are some issues that are to be
considered by the organisations, which are:
 Employee pushback: It has been discovered that the employees are often reluctant to
accept the change that is made in the business strategy. It leads to the failure of
implementation of the digital solution in the business strategy. It could be considered that
change is significantly required in the organisations for competing with the other
organisations with the digital solutions. The digital solutions in the business strategy of
the organisation is significantly required in the modern times. The only method that could
be applied for clearing the doubts among the employees of the organisation is being
completely transparent and providing the required information to the employees.
 Lack of required expertise for leading the digital initiatives: It has been discovered that
there is a major requirement of technology and significant talent for implementing the
successful digital transformation. One of these aspects could not execute successfully
without other. If the present systems are not providing the required services for the
business, then it is the indication of revaluating the partnerships of the technology and
then implement the recent updates in the organisational strategy.
Answer of question 3:
The use of the digital solutions in the organisation is highly connected and relevant.
The use of the distributed systems, cloud based solutions, and the data sets are improving the
business processes and it helps in taking informed decisions in the organisation. The major

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benefits of the distributed system are the content and speed distribution along with
parallelism and scaling.
The distributed systems could be increasingly faster than the single computer systems.
The major benefit of the dispersed database is that the requests could be effectively directed
to any server along with the information of any particular user instead of all the requirements
having to go to any sole machine that could be easily burdened. The demands could be easily
directed to any server physically nearby or on any quick network connection to any
individual who want to use the data that denotes the lesser interval and any other properties
for dealing with the network traffic as well as the bottlenecks.
There are several advantages that are gained by the organisation with the
implementation of the cloud computing. Some of the major benefits for which the company
extensively utilises the cloud computing technology are the reduced IT costs, the scalability
and the business continuity. With the implementation of the cloud computing solutions in the
organisation, the costs of IT are significantly reduced. The migration to the cloud computing
might diminish the costs of management and the maintenance of the IT systems. Instead of
purchasing the costly systems and major apparatus for the business, the costs could be
diminished by the utilisation of the resources of the service benefactor of cloud computing.
The operations and the storage requirements could be effectively scaled as per the
requirements for managing the fluctuating situations of the business and it allows the
extensive flexibility according to the changes in requirements.
The use of data sets is extensively done in the organisation for the analysis of accurate
decisions for the business and achieve growth for the business. These huge data sets could be
analysed by the business using the big data analytics for deducing the appropriate business
information. With the proper use of data sets in the organisation, the decision making could

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be improved, productivity could be increased, the costs could be significantly reduced, and
the customer service could be significantly improved. The analytics of the data sets that are
obtained by the organisation could be analysed using the big data analytics and the result
could provide the decision makers of the business with the data driven insights that is
required by them for helping the company to compete in the business market and then grow.
The modern big data tools significantly allows the analysts to execute the analysis of
increased data, more swiftly that increases the personal productivity. Furthermore, along with
the gained insights, the productivity of the organisation could be increased all through the
company. The data sets from the social media and the CRM systems are extensively utilised
for analysis of the buying patterns of the customers and then predict the future patterns.
Answer of question 4:
Even though the owner of any small business should preserve the severe focus on the
short term productivity, there is the major requirement of considering the long term strategic
planning for ensuring the success of the organisation. The long term strategies of the business
could be categorised as:
Predict the requirements of customers: The companies who are extensively effective
over the long term are the onward looking enterprises where business owner is attempting to
discover the alterations in the customer requirements or desires and translate these
requirements into the innovative products or the services that are provided by the company.
This long term strategy could be effectively implemented within the organisation for allowing
the growth of the business.
Emphasis of efficiency: The significant improvement of the company wide efficiency
is the primary objective of the company. Any capital that is protected by operating
increasingly proficiently is the capital that can be installed for promotion as well as the

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efforts for acquiring the new customers. The business owner intends to improve the
efficiency by the upgrading of communication systems and the computer of the company.
Acquire major competitors: As the business is working in the fragmented market
where several companies are extensively competing against one another. The business
intends to acquire the small competitors for allowing the company to perform the expansion
of the customer base and the geographic coverage and then reach the scale that allows the
business to purchase goods in increased quantities and at the lower prices.
Increase the potential market size: The business discovered that the market of the
business is not growing at the adequate speed and the speed that is desired by the company.
The long term strategy that has been implemented for addressing this problem within the
business is discovering the new customers groups whose member could gain from the
services and the products. There might be the major requirement of emphasizing on the
dissimilar product attributes for attracting the various groups.
Broaden the marketing scope: The long range marketing strategy of any small
business must include the methods for reaching increased number of customers who are the
part of target markets of the company. The long term strategy that could be implemented is
the increase in the distribution channels that allows the business to gain the services and the
products in the front of customers. Another long term strategy that could be considered is the
serving of the customers in the new geographic markets and then allow the expansion of
markets of the business.
Answer of question 5:
The information system requirements could be categorised as:
Basic requirements: The most priority requirement is the realisation of the
requirements of the user, it is significantly user originated, basic, central, and the urgent

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necessities for achieving and should realise. In this sector, the main aspect is the environment
recognition. It has been suggested that the enterprise should be treated as the subsystem of the
economic and the social system that is the understanding the natural, cultural and the political
environment for allowing the grasping the position of enterprise, considering the downstream
providers, competitors, clients and the associates into the consideration. The enterprises could
take significant gain of the exterior threat model and the value chain model for the strategic
investigation for the identification of significant competitive gain that is provided by the
information system. The next phase in the short term requirements is the setting up of the
required team for the development and introduction of the information system within the
organisation. Appropriate teams would be chaired by the senior project manager, which is
created using the technologies, the managers and the business analysts for keeping the
counterpart of the experiences, knowledge, communication skills and the technology. The
teams should comprehend the present and the past of the customers, that includes the
traditions, business philosophy, business values, core values, philosophy, main business and
the staff value for providing the main analysis unfolding and smoothly.
Long term requirements: Beyond the expectations of the users and fulfilling the
requirements of the users majorly is goodness of the fit of the system as well as the future
user requirements. The daily conferences should be arranged for allowing the understanding
of the working of the information within the organisation. The teams should be planned
convening the departmental staff for interviewing each day, and time controlled within the
hour. The questions of the customers are required to be answered appropriately for providing
the better understanding to the customers about the present working of the business
processes. The major advantages of brainstorming, with the principle of the trigger
application has to be practised for achieving the maximum of the personalisation concept and
understanding the situation of the employees and the customers is required to be done. The

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use case classification testing method is required to be done for testing the quality of each of
the requirements. The documentation is required to be integrated for the extensive analysis of
the working of the information system in the organisation.
Answer of question 6:
The main feasibility of this project of information system has to be analysed within
this particular phase and then an appropriate business proposal has to be presented with the
very common proposal for this project along with some of the cost estimation. While system
analysis is conducted, likelihood study of that suggested system has to be executed. It is done
for ensuring that this suggested system acts as it was intended and it does not act as any
burden to that company. The main considerations that has to be executed are:
1. Economic feasibility: This particular study has to be executed for checking the major
economic impact that would be done on the system of the organisation. The required
capital that could be poured by the company into the development and the research of this
system is restricted.
2. Technical feasibility: This particular training has to be executed for checking the aspect
of technical feasibility, which are the technical necessities of this system. Any system that
has been established should not comprise of high demand on the accessible
methodological resources.
3. Social feasibility: This phase of study is for checking the stage of the approval of this
system by any user. It contains the main training procedure of the users for using this
system effectively. The users should not get any kind of insecurity while using the
system, rather it must accept this as a necessity.
The considerations for ensuring the quality analysis of the information technology within the
organisation could be categorised as:

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Creating a vibrant mission: The major task of the IT quality purpose should be added to the
value to any organisation as complete and specifically for improving the IT quality within
each aspect that includes the application, help desk and the infrastructure. Moreover, IT
quality purpose could not serve as the sole owner of the quality of the information
technology, it should not attempt to resolve all the quality issues solely.
 Set particular objectives: The quality objectives are required to focus ultimately on the
user specification as well as the crucial areas that are problematic to IT area. The
objectives includes the improvement of the control the IT costs, user satisfaction,
diminish the defects, develop the IT infrastructure as well as the application
steadiness and then enhance the user perspective of the IT quality.
 Design simple strategies: A simple strategy has to be developed for allowing the
understanding of the working of the information technology developments within the
organisation. This quality function can emphasize mainly on issues of the customers
than the internal issues. One more strategy will be the utilisation of the small team for
quality and the extended community for the quality instead of building the large
organisation of quality within information technology development.
 Design the focussed simple quality function: This quality function must comprise of
the focussed, small team within IT community. The main solution is avoiding the
creation of the bureaucratic, large entity but instead work the smaller team who
signifies the extended community within the business purposes. This quality purpose
must be controlled by the significant executive who is directly reporting to any CIO or
CFO. It would significantly guarantee that this new purpose comprises of necessary
influence and could manage among the organisation efficiently.

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Answer of question 7:
Some of the crucial issues of the business are uncertainty, globalisation, innovation,
government policy as well as the regulations and the technology. The uncertainty issues are
the uncertainty within the worldwide economy, the improbability issues in credit markets, the
indecision in the methods by which the new regulations would affect the business, the
uncertainty regarding the working of the competitors and the uncertainty regarding the
process by which the innovative technology would affect business. These particular issues of
the vagueness leads to the short term emphasis. The companies are significantly reluctant
from the long term forecasting in the support of the short term outcomes with the indecision
frequently the excuse.
The key issues in the information system acceptance are mainly influenced by the two
major factors that are the perceived usefulness and the supposed ease of the use. The
perceived usefulness could be considered to be significant degree to which any individual
observes that utilising any specific system would improve the job presentation. The observed
ease of the use could be considered as degree to which any singular perceives that utilising
any specific system is significantly free of any effort that includes the physical and the mental
efforts and the ease of learning. The external variables like the level of education of the users,
the organisational and the gender features like the job training might also impact significantly
on the perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of the use. The complete ensuring the
compatibility of the information system in the organisation with the present work practises of
any organisation can be perceived as the essential component for the complete acceptance of
the information technology. If this technology in use is considered to, for instance, the
slowdown of the procedures or the increase in the workloads of all the employees of the
organisation, then the major patterns of the resistance that leads to the poor user acceptance
might develop. The main ethical issues related to the information system preceded the