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IT Strategy and the Overall Business Strategy

Contents

TOC \o "1-4 " \h \z HYPERLINK \l "_Toc0 " I- Introduction PAGEREF _Toc0 \h 2

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc1 " II- Definitions PAGEREF _Toc1 \h 2

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc2 " III- Situation Analysis PAGEREF _Toc2 \h 3

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc3 " 1 . IT projects fail to deliver a value PAGEREF _Toc3 \h 3

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc4 " 2 . IT Business alignment proved to deliver value PAGEREF _Toc4 \h 4

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc5 " 2 .1 The Need for Strategic Alignment PAGEREF _Toc5 \h 4

HYPERLINK

\l "_Toc6 " 2 .2 The ROI or the value of the Alignment PAGEREF _Toc6 \h 6

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc7 " IV- Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc7 \h 7

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc8 " References PAGEREF _Toc8 \h 8

Introduction

Business strategies were basically developed as weapons in the competition . However , with the rapid change in business environment competition roles have changed forcing companies to redefine their way in to compete

With the evolved role of IT , organizations started to think to use IT as a strategic weapon either as a competitive advantage or even as an enabler for growth . However , unfortunately IT solely was not enough to take that role

So , organizations needed to rethink and reinvent new management or business best practices in to maximize the obtained IT value . As a result , organizations adopted best practices such as IT business alignment to align IT with their business strategic goals in to survive and succeed in the competition

The aim of this is to determine whether an IT strategy focused on maintaining a cutting-edge position is the most effective way to support any kind of overall business strategy or not . The main hypotheses of the research are that (1 ) IT strategy focused on maintaining a cutting-edge technology position isn 't enough (or isn 't the most effective way ) to support the overall business strategy because (2 ) it has to be aligned with the overall business strategy

The first of all defines the term IT business alignment , then analyzes the current situation , and finally it ends with a conclusion

Definitions

Before analyzing the current situation , it is necessary to define an important term such as IT Business Alignment . Tapia , R . S (2006 gives a simple straight-to-the-point definition for the term `IT Business alignment ' the problem of matching services offered by IT with the requirements of the business (p .1

Situation Analysis

In to test the research hypotheses or to prove that an IT strategy focused on maintaining a cutting-edge technology position is not the most effective way to support any kind of overall business strategy this section will analyze the current situation of IT projects and the relationship with their business strategic goals and requirement

IT projects fail to deliver a value

Research showed that the gap between IT and business strategic goals still significantly exists . A significant percentage of IT projects fail to deliver a value as shown in figure (1 . According to Needmuchwala , A A , [2008] , 41 of IT projects failed to...