The Impact of Strategic Alignment on IT Projects Essay

The Impact of Strategic Alignment on IT Projects - Essay Example Governing information technology is one of the most critical issues facing governments today. Henderson and Venkatraman [2] argues that Information Technology (IT) can deliver no value without carefully planning to achieve the potential of IT implementation with business goals. Such concern is a focus of many business executives today [3, 4]. The concept of the Strategic Alignment perspectives is used as a systematic measurement tool to better achieve the mutual linkage between business and IT strategies. This paper sheds light on how Strategic Alignment perspectives have an impact on the success of government IT projects. The subject frames the general contribution of this paper. Organization strategy, knowledge, decision-making, Enterprise Architecture (EA) and public value are among key perspectives that are examined to enhance organization performance. The current SA perspectives is then analyzed in a local Australian Council context in which these perspectives are most appropriately used and the appropriate practices for IT value is recommended to be used in public policy. An Australian Council is responsible for a city's basic needs like garbage removal, planning of the town, and parks. The focus on an Australian Council was chosen due to the simplicity of this type of governance. Henderson and Venkatraman [2] define Strategic Alignment as 'selecting appropr... Henderson and Venkatraman [2] define Strategic Alignment as 'selecting appropriate alignment perspectives for achieving business objectives'. Reich & Benbasat [9] defines alignment as the degree to which the information technology mission, objectives, and plans support are supported by the business mission, objectives, and plans. Luftman [4] defines business IT alignment as applying IT in an appropriate and timely way in harmony with business strategies, goals and needs. Kearns & Sabherwal [10] argue that in order to improve organizational performance, achieving Strategic Alignment between business and IT is essential. Others argue that firm's failure to realize the potential value of IT is due partially to the absence of Strategic Alignment [2, 11, 12]. In 2007 Chan and Reich [3] published an annotated bibliography of alignment which listed over 150 articles. The current concept of the Strategic Alignment models in some ways reflects and accommodates a long history of research and practice concerning the most effective means of linking business and technology strategies. However, it is important to measure this alignment, and to quantify its effectiveness. Responding to a call for a more comprehensive alignment measurement, many models have been developed. For example the Critical Success Factors (CSF) model developed by Rockart [13] is one of the earliest models that link the use of IT to the organizational objectives and its strategies. The CSF is still widely used today. The Strategic Grid model, developed by McFarlan [14], addresses four quadrants: support, factory, transition, and strategy each of which represents a situation for the company. This model explains how IT is related to strategy and business operations in a company. The