IT Investment at North American Financial

The purpose of this article is to illuminate the need for any organization to have its IT strategy and business strategy properly aligned. While many organizations view IT and business alignment as an event – it is actually an on-going process, or continuous journey. Therefore, the main problem is that many organizations of today still hold these two principles (business mission & IT strategy) as two separate entities. However, in the Information Age – collaboration is key to capturing and retaining market penetration. To not have alignment with the IT and business strategy together is not a matter of want it is a matter of survival. This report will expand upon the need for business and IT strategic alignment as well as examine what happens in lack of a comprehensive plan. This will be done by examining the Vermont Teddy Bear company prior to and after the arrival of Bob Stetzel, the Vice President of Information Technology. This document will view it findings and make recommendations on the immediate and future operations of the company.

Case Assignment 1: "How do the two UCB's strategic IT plans compare against the Baldridge criteria for assessing strategic planning?"

IT business cases can set the framework for making a good decisions on projects (Perkins, 2005). They provide a business with an explanation of why the project is needed and how it will

Foundation of IT in a place is very crucial for most business. Organizations can use IT resource to create innovative and strategic process that helps business to reach beyond the status quo. Organization without new technologies resources can lose momentum and fall behind in competition. On the other hand, organizations with effective and updated technologies remain competent and superior; get competitive advantage thus acquire and maintain their big market share.

In an article written by Pam Baker named "Six Tips for Stretching IT Budgets in 2009", the writer recommended six tips to get the most value of technology offerings without sacrificing innovations. However, these tips still need some assessment. This paper assesses both positive and negative impacts that those tips have. Of course, the impact is on both operations and strategic investment spending. It will be concise and to the point.

Figure 9.3. The table below is similar to Figure 9.3; it shows the five functional areas of an

Copyright 2009 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America This chapter was originally published as chapter 1 of The Adventures of an IT Leader, copyright 2009 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the

In the market today, business is showing growing interest to partner with IT to make sure they get the value for investing huge in technology. But, still there is a gap between the two departments and the IT folks think that they do not have enough support from the business to ensure the value is realized for the organization. A good example of deep integration of IT and business is the recent firing of the Apple maps chief. The ill-fated Apple maps was the failure of both the IT folks who couldn’t develop an efficient app for maps and also the business who couldn’t gather all the requirements and couldn’t manage the project to achieve the desired output. As a result, the Apple exec Richard Williamson was blamed and fired for the disastrous project and humiliation for the organization.

IT by itself does not provide any value, however, the alignment of IT to strategic, operational, and cultural objectives provides business value. Thus, the CIO must ensure that any new investment in IT is for the sake of business objectives and not for “IT for ITs sake”. Ensuring business alignment against IT project delivery is critical, must be undertaken for any investment and is the key component of IT value.

When the CEO launches two new strategic initiatives requiring integration across all business units, the organization – whose IT decisions have been largely delegated to its business units in proportion to their revenue generating capacity – now faces the dilemma of how to prioritize its IT projects in order to support the new strategic “enterprise” vision.

IT Executive, with a success track of development and delivery of technology portfolios under complex matrix organizations, aimed at shaping and realizing disruptive business strategies. Success record as a business-technology strategy leader includes the use of business acumen, influencing and negotiation skills combined with enterprise architecture principles, application portfolio development/management, scaled agile portfolio management skills, and deep technical knowledge to increase firms’ competitiveness.

The partnership at Hefty Hardware between IT and the business is not effective. One of the core problems faced by Hefty Hardware was the lack of a productive, working relationship between the company’s IT and business divisions. The four building blocks needed for a foundation on which a solid relationship could be constructed; competence, credibility, interpersonal interactions, and trust, were not present between the two divisions (McKeen & Smith, 2012). The business division felt IT lacked competence when dealing with business needs, demonstrated by the IT department not having knowledge of Hefty Hardware’s basic business concerns, goals or processes.

All these factors are creating new challenges and new opportunities for businesses of all kinds and for the public sector. Adapting to the volatility and change is crucially dependent on, and in many cases driven by, IT. But to successfully meet these challenges and grasp these opportunities, you must focus on what you do best, not on becoming systems experts. Yet at the same time you must be 100 per cent certain that your IT support is efficient, cost effective and totally tuned to your needs.

This paper will discuss the processes and pitfalls faced by Information Technology managers in today’s world of business. Today’s IT managers need not only be savvy about existing equipment and upcoming technology; but must also understand the budget issues they face and how to properly address them. The IT manager is asked to look into a crystal ball and predict what products will be beneficial and which requirements can be cut from the budget. They must be able to differentiate between the new shiny fad and products that will be a true asset to the company’s visions and goals. An IT budget can no longer be a static number on the company’s finance sheet; it must be a clear vision of the department’s future spending while falling in line with the goals and expectations of the company.

Opportunity Creation: New business initiatives could be created, giving the stakeholders chances to innovate and take the organization in desired direction, creating plans which would support the business plans and help in Business and IT alignment. Technology such as mobile services would be worked on and prototypes could be tested utilising a more process-centric approach.