Analysis of Factors Influencing IT-Business Strategic Alignment

This report delves into the critical factors that influence the level of IT-business strategic alignment, a topic of paramount importance in today's data-driven business landscape. The study begins by establishing the significance of aligning information technology with business strategies, highlighting the role of IT in enhancing efficiency, revenue growth, and competitiveness. The research employs a positivism research philosophy and a deductive approach, utilizing a questionnaire to gather data on various influencing factors. The report examines the impact of IT governance, organizational culture, and IT skills on business outcomes. It explores the evolution of IT applications and their strategic uses, emphasizing the importance of information resources as strategic tools. The methodology section outlines the research design, data collection methods, and analysis techniques. The literature review provides definitions of key terms such as information technology, strategic management, and IT-business alignment. The research aims to identify the factors that influence IT-business strategic alignment in the contemporary industrial sector, including the importance of management style, organizational culture, and IT skills. The report emphasizes the need for strategic planning and the potential drawbacks of misalignment. The findings are expected to provide insights into how organizations can improve their IT-business strategic alignment to achieve organizational excellence. The report concludes with a comprehensive analysis of the factors influencing the level of IT-business strategic alignment and its impact on organizational success.

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:

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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:

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The research methodology is the part of the research which gives us an idea about how
we are about to proceed with the research. It gives us an insight regarding the approaches that
will be used for conducting the research. The entire process of research methodology is divided
in to certain subparts and they are the research methods, research philosophy, approaches of the
research, research design and methods for the collection of data. All of these plays a significant
role in performing the research. With the help of the proper methods and techniques used by the
researchers the collection of the data becomes easier and the analysis can be conducted smoothly
as well (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2017).
2.2 Outline of the Method:
For the purpose of this research we will makes use of certain tools and techniques which
will be determined in this section of the research. The tools that will be used for the process of
the collection of the data and ways in which they will be gathered, the design of the research that
will be followed, and all the necessary steps that will be taken for the research is discussed in this
section of the research (Bauer, 2014). The significance of the research methodology lies in its
ability to solve the operational and planning problems in the research and is very helpful for the
process of decision making.
2.3 Philosophy of the Research:
The research philosophy helps us in the determination of the procedures that are
undertaken by the researchers in order to conduct the research. It will also help in gaining more
idea regarding the topic of the research that is Factors Influencing the Level of IT-Business
Strategic Alignment. The nature of the research study helps in the process of selection of
appropriate philosophy of the research (Brinkmann, 2014). Research philosophy are mainly of
three types. The first one is the positivism. The theory of positivism deals with the logical ideas

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required for the researches along with the application. This is done in order to extract hidden
facts that are reacted to the research topic (Litosseliti, 2018). The next one is the theory of
Interpretivism. With this research philosophy we can obtain the complex and critical structures
that are involved in the process of analysis of the social aspects of the world along with the topic
that is chosen. This is a comparatively difficult and lengthy process in comparison with the other.
Lastly, the theory of realism. This is the approach which is the combination of the other two
processes. The domain of this theory is to discuss about how the process of the human
interaction is related to the chosen topic as per the social world is taken into consideration (Choy,
2014).
For the purpose of this research we will consider the first theory of research philosophy
that is the theory of positivism. This will be taken as we will be digging deeper into the
discussion regarding the hidden facts related to the topic that has been taken into consideration.
As time is one of the most important factor for this research, positivism is chosen as the other
two philosophy are comparatively more complicated and time consuming. The selected theory of
positivism makes extensive use of the existing information that is available for the research
purpose. Thus the other two process are discarded (Dang & Pheng, 2015). The researcher here is
completely independent of the study and the processes relayed to the study as there are no other
human interests that can be obtained from this.
2.4 Approach of the Research:
This is the process that is undertaken to provide guidance to the researcher such that they
can proceed with their study in an organized manner. With proper approach towards the research
proper outcomes can be obtained as well. The detail practical application of the theoretical
approaches related to the research studies can be obtained with the appropriate research approach

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towards the chosen topic (Dumay & Cai, 2015). Primarily there are two research approaches that
is in functioning and they are inductive approach of the research and the deductive approach of
the research.
Inductive approach is the research approach that is used for the purpose of creating
theories regarding the matter of the subject. However this is more comprehensive approach that
is used in the research nut this is a much lengthier process (Humphries, 2017).
Deductive approach for the research in which a proper statement is defined for the research. A
set of the research questions follows the statements which are answered directly or with detailed
expanded explanations in the entire research. This is much easier approach and the time taken to
answer the questions are much lesser than the time taken to develop a theory for the research
(Jennings et al., 2018).
For the purpose of this research we will take the deductive approach of the research. We
will develop a proper questionnaire for the research purpose and determine how much idea the
people have by asking them their opinion via the questions (Lushey & Munro, 2015). We will
analyse the entire scenario practically such that we can determine the validity of the information
that we are collecting. The research will be based upon the reviewing of the factors that are
influencing the IT-Business tactical alignment. However, developing new theories is not required
in this case thus inductive approach is discarded for the purpose of the research.
2.5 Research Design:
The research design helps in guiding the researchers into performing a proper research by
defining a proper framework for them. With well-defined research design it becomes easier to
collect the data which in turn helps in the analysis of the data (Mackey & Marsden, 2015). There

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are three categories into which the research design can be divided into and they are: Exploratory,
Explanatory and lastly the Descriptive research design.
The explanatory research design is the first in the line when it comes to describe the
research designs (Ledford & Gast, 2018). With the help of this design we can acknowledge all
kinds of ideas regarding the research topic. The second design for performing the research
includes the process of summarization of the discrete occurrences in the events of the research
which actually has certain significant impact upon the results and outcomes of the researches.
The last process of the research design is the descriptive research process. The descriptive
process of the research is the one favoured for most of the researches. The descriptive design
helps in the process of identification of the occurrences in the research (McCusker & Gunaydin,
2015). This design is capable of making decisions regarding the steps which are required for the
purpose of the research study.
For the purpose of this research we will consider the descriptive design process. The
descriptive design helps in the process of identification of the events or the factors that will
provide assistance to the research. The in-depth process of undertaking a research and
investigations regarding the research can be obtained with the help of this rese4rach design. The
selected research design will help us in performing the research within the time as the other two
process are little complicated and requires more time for completion (Rani, Yadav & Jain, 2016).
With the help of the descriptive method of the research design, we can obtained a detailed
analysis of the content which is effective for the purpose of the data collection and the analysis.
Hence this research design is chosen over the other two processes.

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2.6 Methods for the Collection of Data:
This is the process by which the data is gathered in the research. The process is
conducted such that numerous methods of the collection of the data can be identified along with
the sources of the data, the techniques of the analysis of the collected and ethical considerations
of the research and lastly the limitations of performing the research.
2.6.1 Data Source:
Based on the topic of the report, the data sources are used for the purpose of the
collection of the data. The reliability of the data depends upon the sources of the data that are
used for the collection of the data. There are two main sources of data that are used for the
method of data collection and they are the primary sources of data and the secondary sources of
data. The primary data are the data that are collected from the sources like the people and experts
in the field of the research. They are collected with the help of the surveys and the
questionnaires. These data from the primary sources are much more reliable than the other
sources of the data as they are the real-time data used by the researches for the purpose of the
data analysis. The secondary sources of the data are used in the research process as well. These
are the data that are gathered from the sources like the journals, articles, books and the internet
sources for the research purpose. This way of collecting the data is much easier in comparison to
the other sources of data as they are available widely. However, for the purpose of this research
we will be considering the primary sources of data. All though the process is a little lengthy, the
reliability of the data is much more than secondary data sources we will follow the method of
questionnaire for the purpose of the data collection.

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2.6.2 Techniques for data analysis:
There are two main types of the data analysis techniques used in the researches. They are the
qualitative analysis of the data and the quantitative analysis of data. The qualitative sources of
data are used for consideration of the opinions placed by other. They are more theoretical
approach than the practical approach. The Quantitative sources of the data on the other hand is
the numerical approach for the analysis of the data which is much more reliable and easier to
analysis. For the purpose of this research we will use the quantitative sources of the data (Lewis,
2015). The response generated by the questions that are placed for the people will helps in
analysis of the entire scenario. A larger sample size is taken into consideration from which a
small amount of the sample size is chosen for the analysis of the data.
3. Literature Review:
3.1 Definition of the terms used
3.1.1. Information Technology and Information System
Information technology is regarded as the use of computer software and other computer
systems along with developing new software and technologies and also maintaining the old ones.
Information technology also involves networking which involves distributing data after
processing (Héroux & Fortin, 2018). There are various types of information technologies,
seventy seven to be exact and by every passing day, the number is increasing as new
technologies are being added to this list. In the coming few years this list would increase further.
Few major ones are:

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 Analytics: Analytics or data analytics is regarded as discovering data or information
which is useful and meaningful. It is one the most common type of software analytics
which can focus on a particular data type like web analytics.
 Artificial Intelligence: The intelligent software as it is regarded; AI or artificial
intelligence is the most useful and popularly used technology in recent times. We can
hardly imagine a world in twenty first century without artificial intelligence because of
its ability to learn and evolve with time.
 Big Data: Big data is regarded as the processing, analyzing and storage of data by
various methods. It is mainly designed for cloud computing infrastructure. Big data
usually goes beyond the limits of data size, processing power, speed and cost
consideration making it a widely used information technology recently.
 BRM System: BRM or Business Relationship Management System is an IT system that
is used by several types of software throughout the system. Occasionally, customer
relationship management software goes beyond the relationships with customers
handling employees, partners and others. This software manages the deployment,
execution and surveying of business rules.
 CRM System: CRM or Customer Relationship Management System is one of the most
commonly used software. It is a platform that deals with the sales processes. This
software or platform also supports customer services and marketing services.
 E-commerce: E-commerce are IT services which provides platforms to support
businesses online. Commercially this is very useful as electronic transaction is recently
in demand for its effectiveness and security.

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Information System is defined as interrelated components which are working
together for collecting, processing, analyzing and storing information which can support
coordination, decision making, analysis, control and view of an organization. It has five
components, computer hardware, software, databases, telecommunication and human
resource management.
3.1.2 Strategic management
Strategic management is regarded as the process of making, plans,
analyzing, monitoring, and assessing all necessary requirements for a company or an
organization to reach its targets and execute its plans. The business management is
changing constantly; hence a company must always analyze and strategize to achieve
success. There are five stages of strategic planning:
 Proper planning for the project
 Researching well for the project to ensure proper working.
 Getting authorization for performing the project. The company must
demonstrate well for getting the authorization.
 The presentation phase is particularly important for that purpose as the review
phase shall determine the approval of the project.
 After the project is approved, the necessary information is communicated and
according implemented.

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3.1.3 IT and business alignment
The process by which an organization having a business idea uses information
technology to achieve its goals is called Business-IT alignment. It is very essential for
growth and improvement of a company as information technology helps in responding
with new changes and new solutions and adaptations to various problems. This helps in
maintenance of momentum of the company. Technical advances, in other terms, help a
lot in business management.
3.2 Impact of IT governance in business
Information technology has a huge impact o modern world in recent times. Its importance
can be understood from the fact the fact that it can help several organizations or companies to
achieve their destined outcomes. This can be achieved through IT governance. IT governance
deals with mostly two things: one is to take care of technological risks and problems and to add
business values to it. IT governance also helps in management plans, helps in monitoring
activities and overall improvement of the company.
Information technologies in recent times are overwhelming with big data analytics, cloud
computing and management of business and customer services and mobility. All these require
great amount of governance. This requires efficient communication between business companies,
especially their management and the IT section. Hence IT-business governance is important.
While companies are spending a lot of money, time and effort and all possible resources
to improve, there is but a little chance of success in their ideas without any blueprint of their
work. Moreover, legal compliance and regulatory matters makes it very difficult for the
companies to excel. This is where the need of IT professionals is required. The IT systems and

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people who expertise in them can control the structure and functioning of a company and guide it
to success on a perilous journey.
There exists an Information technology governance framework which is basically a
framework or a set of rules which dictate the methods, processes and ways which an organization
or a company can implement IT governance and get benefitted from it. They can also manage
this IT governance system and monitor their working and in turn receive guidelines, solutions,
utility and resources and other processes which may benefit the company or the organization.
Information technologies governance is a framework provide a company which wants to
be benefitted from IT investments. This provides us with a structure which can effectively align
the business strategies of a company with the minds of IT professionals. If a program and
presentation is normal, then it attracts a lot of stakeholders and investors who feel interested in
these ideas. Information technology governance is regarded as an integral part of any companies
in recent times and it becomes an integral part of enterprise governance and as well as business
management and customer care services. It not only helps them but their impact can be utilized
for future use as well. This makes this area so widely used and popular.
3.3 Importance of the Organizational Culture on Business:
Before understanding the importance of the organizational culture, it is important to have
certain clear ideas regarding the concept of the organizational culture. According to Nicho &
Khan, (2017), the organizational culture is the set of rules and regulations in the system which is
directed by strong values, beliefs, assumptions. The organization culture governs the process in
which the people behaves in the organization. The values which are shared by the organizational

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culture have a greater impact on the people of the organization and determines what they wear,
act and show performance in their jobs.
The argument is supported by Héroux & Fortin, (2016), who said that there are four kinds
of organizational culture that can impact the workplace, this includes, Hierarchy, Adhocracy,
Market and Clan. The first is the hierarchy, this is the culture which are determined by the
controlling and structuring of the entire system. The main focus of the culture is to lay emphasis
upon the efficiency, stability and performing right. The clan on the other hand is the culture
which is more like a family where the nurturing is received from all the ends leading to a
situation where the things are done together like a family. Adhocracy is the culture that believes
in taking risks and innovation. Lastly the market culture. This is more focused upon the results or
the output generated from the market.
There is a huge impact of the organizational culture on the business a numerous things
depends up on that. This also includes the way the operations are managed in the organizations.
According to Puspitasari & Jie (2018), there are seven different ways in which the organizational
culture can affect the business and they are:
 The external as well the internal identification of the company can be obtained with the
help of the culture that is followed by the company. This is because, the culture of an
organization gives us an idea regarding the planning and the programming of the
operations that is undertaken by the company to obtain proper results from the business.
The culture of an organization reverberate within the entire organization and is reflected
on the products or the work that is delivered to the consumers of the business.
 The organizational culture determined by the core values of the company. The culture
that is portrayed by the employees of certain organization is either the reflection or

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betrayal of the values followed by the organization. The methods which are applied by
the employees for the purpose of the business, how the interaction is between the team
mates, how the customers are treated determines the culture of the work place of the
organization. The culture of the employees determines the company’s trusts and beliefs
towards the actions that are taken up.
 The culture can help in the transformation of the employees to the critics or the
advocates. This is the best thing that can happen to the organization. If the employees
finds then to be one of the important part of the company, they are more likely to work
efficiently and promote the same work culture internally as well as externally.
 With the strong organizational culture, the bets people can be sustained and retained in
the organization. This is one of the most common aspect of the organization. if the
employee is comfortable working in a team or between members feeling that he or she is
the part of the community and not just a mismatched piece, they will enjoy working
which will result in the better and efficient productivity in the company (Tallon et al.,
2019).
 A well on boarding can be achieved with the help of the proper functioning culture. This
is because the culture helps in pushing and guiding the employees in a positive direction
which helps in the development of the business further.
 Culture helps in converting the entire company into a team. Culture brings people
together such that they can stay aligned. Gathering different perspectives becomes easier
when the culture of the organization is clear.

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 The employee performance and the wellbeing can be obtained with the help of the culture
in the organization. According to Paul Barrett, the wellbeing of the employees in every
sector of the organization helps in the development of the culture of the organization.
3.4 Effects of information technology skills in Business:
The technology has shown considerable amount of advancement in the past few decades.
With the technologies like the cloud computing g, Artificial intelligence, ERP system, Supply
chain management system, and many others, the business has taken a steep turn towards the
deployment of the strategies consisting of these technologies along with the general process of
business.
According to Panda & Rath (2018), it is very hard to define a business excluding the
digital revolution that has taken place around the globe. Even in certain places of the world, the
technology are being used by the farmers for the purpose of keeping records. The production
records, the planning for the finances are all taken care by the farmer with the appropriate usage
of the technology. The technical issues and its procurements can be4 achieved with the
technologies in use as well. In the contemporary world of business, there is one simple way of
success, which is encouraging innovation with the usage of the technology. The companies
which are in their phase of establishment and development are well aware of this fact thus they
drive into the process of the innovation with the help of the technologies that are currently in use.
Figuring out the correct choices of the technology is important as well.
This fact is supported strongly by Wiedemann, Gewald & Weeger (2017), who
mentioned in their research that nowadays the backbone of the business is developed with the
information system. The business without technology or information system is certainly not
going to last longer. Previously, the process of innovation was dependent upon the ingeniousness

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and it was slow and gradual process. With the computer being innovated and internet being
discovered, the process of innovation has sky rocketed. In the 1980’s the business processes
barely needed innovation. The process was limited to the managing the existing business model
such that the efficiency could be defined. According to Hickman & Akdere (2019), the process
of innovation can be marked as the starting phase of the human being getting smarter. The
collective intelligences increased in the with the travel and multimedia sector getting enriched
with the innovation techniques. In the contemporary world, the global brain and the computer
applications are moving simultaneously together and the people have developed the ability to
learn faster and better than they could have before.
3.5 Impact of the Information Technology skills in the development of the business
strategy:
Information technology is one of the most discussed topic of all time in the contemporary
business without which the entire system will fail to respond. The business giants like the Apple,
IBM, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, Alphabet, and many more make extensive use of
the technology for the purpose of the operations of the company these companies are completely
dependent upon these technologies for the purpose of their day to day activities.
According to Sabherwal et al., (2019), the business processes related to the
communication and the information technology are taken up by the IT which also includes one
of the most essential process of the business, the decision making. The systems like the ERP,
CRM are technologies which are widely in use for improving the business and the relationship
with the customers and the stakeholders in the business strategically. Formation of a strategy for
the business purpose is not an easy jib that has to be done. Making the strategy that this
developed for the system, person and the organization fit to the usage is one of most important

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area of the research as it can helps in obtaining the competitive advantage over the others. With
the employees of the organization being enlightened with the skills and the knowledge of the
information technology and the engineering techniques, the difficulties in the usage of the
information technology in the business reduces are lot. Evolution of the technologies like the
internet as mentioned in the previous section has completely removed the problem of the
geographical boundaries for reaching out to the business franchises outside the country. Now we
even have the internet on the go technology where we can access the business activities with the
usage of smart devices. The exchange of the business information has become easier, faster and
smoother. The information availability has increased as well. The employees are hired on the
basis of their abilities to handle the customer, knowledge of the engineering skills, the rigid
backing in the financial sector of the business, learning new technologies in the field of the
engineering, and additional knowledge on the new technologies.
As said by Tai, Wang, & Yeh, (2019), the business management system and the human
resources department is focused mainly on the process of hiring employees who have expertise
in the field of technology. Technologies can help in the expansion of the business by building up
aptitudes and capabilities for the designing the organization in such a way that it can benefit the
business. The technologies such as the big data analysis can be extremely beneficial for the
business. It can resolve the problem that needs as much as 10 people in the business that too is
the minimum. As discussed above, the big data is the collection of the huge amount of data in the
organization (Masih, Misra & Mohapatra, 2019). If it is merged with the business or rather
strategically implemented in the business, it can helps is storing the data along with processing
and sorting them. The business inputs are mostly unstructured. In order to sort them, numerous
departments used to work together in the traditional business process. With the development of

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the technologies like the HADOOP, these unstructured data are trimmed and properly aligned
with the business’s original database, without the need of the human intervention. The process is
extremely fast and the errors are much lesser.
3.6 Gap in the Literature:
All though there are numerous areas which can be developed in the business with the
help of the information technology, there are numerous places which needs improvement as well.
This includes, the misalignment in the expectations, problems in maintaining integrity of the
data, unpreparedness of the project team members, unprepared employees, lack of the vendor
support, inadequate training tools for the development of the software and lastly the decline in
the productivity of the business (De Haes et al., 2020). These are not uncommon. While a change
is implemented a business has to go through these problems. Especially the problems like
marinating the integrity of the data while transferring them from the previous data bases to the
new ones is challenging. Loss of the data due to the technical issues can be catastrophic for the
company. This is because, the consumers and the client details are very important for the
organisation. The employees may not be acquainted with the new system which is implemented
in the business resulting in chaos wastage of the time and ultimately resulting in the reduction of
the productivity. One of the other most significant challenge is the reduced amount of
employment. With more technologies on the field of the business, the rate of employment
declines as well. This is a benefit for the organization but is a discredit for the employees as well.
This research is conducted such that these problems can be fixed.
4. Research Hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: The engagement of the manager in the strategic alignment increases as the
leadership between the IT Managers and the business increases.

22IT-BUSINESS STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
Hypothesis 2: The companies or the organizations practicing or pursuing the strategic alignment
have a better chances of the competitive advantages over the other organizations.
Hypothesis 3: As the higher level of Information technology is implemented in the
organization’s business and a considerable amount of success can be obtained from that as well,
the involvement of the manager with the Strategic Alignment as well.
Hypothesis 4: The high level of service amongst the business and IT business managers, the
greater the manager’s engagement in strategic alignment.
Hypothesis 5: The stronger the belief is towards the business planning and the information
technology planning, and the stronger is the values towards the same, the engagement of the
managers towards the business and technology alignment is greater.
5. Questionnaire:
The following sets of questionnaire can help in the process of the collection of the data with the
help of the surveys.
1. What is your gender?
 Male
 Female
2. Please mention your age-group?
 20-30 years
 30-40 years
 40-50 years
 50-60 years
 60years and above

23IT-BUSINESS STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
3. How is your organization making use of the information technology?
 Very Efficiently
 Efficiently
 Moderate
 Inefficient
 Very Inefficient
4. Is there any chances of improving the business with the help of the strategic
alignment with the IT?
 Yes
 No
5. Do you have any idea about the trends and technology that can enhance the
business?
 Yes
 No
6. Which technology do you think will go best with the business of your
organization?
 Big Data Analysis
 Enterprise Resource Planning
 Customer Relationship Management
 Supply Chain Management System.
7. How employees can be benefited with the implementation of the technologies
in the business sector?
 Very Efficiently

24IT-BUSINESS STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
 Efficiently
 Moderate
 Inefficient
 Very Inefficient

25IT-BUSINESS STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
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