I
believe since the IT strategy is to support the business strategy, IT strategy
has to be built into the business strategy by including the IT managers and
personnel in the strategy setting, implementation and management process. I
think that is what alignment means. In this way innovation becomes a
collaborative effort. I think this approach is better in a fast changing
business environment in case the strategy needs to change. But the question is
should digital strategy be separated from IT strategy or should the digital
strategy be part of the IT strategy?
So,
it is about the coming together of all systems in other to better achieve the
business goals and serve the customers better. The communication about
business/IT alignment within the organisation must go down from top to the
bottom, especially within the IT department. The reasons that business services
and information systems services fail to be aligned may be due to a lack of
clear definition of the link between business and departmental goals so that
there are differences in vision.
The
alignment between the strategic and operational levels will change depending on the size of the business. A large company will need to have large IT
operations, large or complex processes, infrastructures, skills and large
customer base which may be spread all over the place or even internationally,
with different methods of reaching them. By contrast, a small organisation may
have a single process, few skills and one or few people dealing with
operations. So, the level of communication, resources, commitment and
development of culture required is different and will need to be more pervasive
in a large organisation in order to bring about any change.
