IT Business Strategic Alignment Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

IT Business Strategic Alignment Case Study Help

Comparatively, about 38 percent of the publicly-owned firms and only about 8 percent of private firms represented the average spending on IT i.e. no less than 50 percent of their capital expenditure per year. Overall, this significantly represented that the public firms are known to make more investments and in large amountson IT from their capital budget as compared to their private organization which assumes that the definition of the capital budget wasconsistent through both private and public organizations. Almost every respondent was primarily involved or very much involved with the IT and business strategy formulation within their organization. Similarly, almost every respondent demonstrated an understanding of successful achievement betweenIT strategy and business within the organization were considered very important.

Lastly, the respondents were asked regarding the type of alignment of IT business strategy being responsible for their organizations. The three benefits that were highly rated were improvement in communication between the IT and business decision-makers, improvement in the relationship between the IT and businessdecision-makers, and improvement in the use of IT was associated with the use of organizational goals. Whereas in contradiction, the three benefits which rated at the lowest level included the achievement of a reduction in the costs of IT, improvement in the revenue growth and achievement of a better perceivedIT usage. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that the differences in the conception of CEOs and CIOs. The perception of CEOs was considered stronger as compared to that of CIOsmeaning that alignment is known to bring improvement in the revenue growth i.e. 59 percent vs 46 percent, reduction in the IT costs i.e. 71 percent vs 60 percentand a significant increase in the competitive advantage in the industry i.e. 88 percent vs 69 percent. The increased focus of CIOs is more on the intangible advantages which are brought by alignment. Differentiation in the perceptions of the larger organizations i.e. annual revenue growth no less than $500 million and the smaller organization was also shown. The belief of larger organization was stronger than small ones on the fact that alignment is known to bring improvement in the revenue growth but it is considered less supportive to positively influence the competitive advantage and organizational brand in the industry.

Business Strategy and Information Technology Strategy:

The second section of the study included a questionnaire associated with more focused concepts of theIT and business strategy. The majority of the respondents i.e. about 87 percent either strongly agreed or agreed that their respective corporations upheld the well-formulated business strategy of which most of the strategies were organization-wide i.e. about 80 percent. Approximately 74 percent of respondents of the study either strongly agreed or agreed that their respective corporations upheld the well-formulated IT strategy of which most of the IT strategies were organization-wide i.e. about 78 percent. Thus, it demonstrated the fact that business strategies are more perceived for better formulation as compared to IT strategies.

About 67 percent of the respondents either strongly agreed or agreed on the encapsulation of their IT strategy by business strategy. CIOs believed more than CEOs that their business strategy of the organization primarily encapsulated IT strategy i.e. 74 percent vs 63 percent and the respondents more likely considered both the strategies were aligned i.e. 86 percent vs 71 percent. Additionally a minority of the respondents i.e. 22 percent perceived that their IT strategies and business to not be alignment. On the other hand, according to a study conducted by the United States,Fortune 500 companies represented that about 42 percent of the executives believed that their IT and business strategies were primarily not aligned which suggested that there seems to a requirement to be more focused on the business and IT strategy alignment to be more successful.

Factors That Promote Alignment

The other section of the questionnairewas primarily based on the concept of factors promoting business and IT strategy alignment. As mentioned above, the factors were mainly grouped into three clusters i.e. people, process and organization; thus, they are reported accordingly. Respondents were asked for indicating the importance of each factor according to them in terms of achieving alignment and the success of the organization in the performance against the factors on the Likert scale. Separate results were reported for both the success of factors and their importance and then cross-tabulation was used for examining the interaction of success and importance. The explanation of cross-tabulation involved the use of a two-by-two matrix. The vertical axis of the matrix displayed the response on the importance if it was important (Likert scale score of 4 or 5 - agree or strongly agree)or not important (Likert scale score of 3 or less – neutral, disagree or strongly disagree). While on the other hand, the horizontal axis displayed the response of success as if it was successful (Likert scale score of 4 or 5 - agree or strongly agree) or not successful (Likert scale score of 3 or less – neutral, disagree or strongly disagree).

Considering the first cross-tabulation, each cell number was the sum of the responses of the Likert scale. Whereas in the second cross-tabulation, the provision of a list of factors presented in the cell was based on the average responses of the Likert scale. Further analysis was undertaken based on the responses for each cross-tabulation through the use of the large/SMEs groupings, public/private, CEO/CIOs.

People Factors:

The question of the questionnaire was designed to let respondents rate the success and the importance of the following factors in the organization:

Similar thoughts between the business and IT decision-makers.
Capability and management skills of decision-makers of the business.
Capability and management skills of decision-makers of the IT.
Communication between the decision-makers of business and IT.
Organization-wide involvement in the formation of the business and IT.
Involvement of decision-makers of the business in the formation of IT strategy.
Involvement of decision-makers of the IT in the formation of business strategy.

Based on the importance, all the seven people factors (leadership and skills)demonstrated average rating on the Likert scale ranging between 4 and 5 i.e. agree and strongly which significantly indicated the probability of strong agreement that people factors were considered important in the achievement of alignment. The key three people factors in importance primarily included communication between the decision-makers in business and IT, capability and skill management and achieving asimilar thought process. Whereas considering the success, the seven people factors demonstrated an average rating on the Likert scale ranging between 3 and 4 i.e. neutral and agree which indicated that agreement about successful performance of people factors. The key three people factors in importance primarily included communication between the decision-makers’ capability and skill management in business and IT and communication between business and IT decision-makers. Appendix ABC displayed the first people factors cross-tabulation. Most of the respondents i.e. 283 and approximately 62 percent perceived the people factors as important indicating the fact that their respective firms quite efficient in those skills. Whereas the rest of the respondents i.e. 132 and approximately 29 percent perceived people factors as important but demonstrated lack of expertise in the performance of those skills. Therefore, remaining respondents i.e. 44 and approximately 10 percent perceived the people factors as not important.

Furthermore, the analysis revealed that people's factors were generally perceived by the CEOs of the organization to be considered of great importance and the fact that their respective organizations demonstrated significant growth in comparison to CIOs. Thus, it indicated that more emphasis on people factors was represented by CEOs than CIOs. The perceptions represented a slightly different in large organizations and SMEs regarding the successful implementation and positive outcomes of people factors. People factors were considered equally important in both private and public organizations but public organizations were found to be more successful through the implementation of people factors as compared to private organizations. This suggested that people'sfactors tend to be more challenging for private organizations. Whereas Appendix ABC displayed the second cross-tabulation of people factors indicating that all the people factors were perceived as successful and important in terms of performance regardless oforganization-wide active involvement in the formation of IT and business strategy which was not successful but was considered important.............................

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