Importance Of Alignment Of It Risk Management Strategy

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.

Risk management includes the “overall decision-making process of identifying threats and vulnerabilities and their potential impacts, determining the costs to mitigate such events, and deciding what actions are cost effective to take to control these risks” (Conklin et al, 2012, pg. 678). For the proper development of risk management techniques, every person at every level of the organization, especially those involved in the Information Security (IS) department “must be actively involved in the following activities:

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.

Information technology has played a crucial role for WestJet Airlines. However, as the IT organization grew in the business, it was necessary for WestJet to keep up with the change so the executive team made a decision to hire a chief information officer, Cheryl Smith, who could keep WestJet’s IT systems up to the required standard (Marrone, 2015). To achieve this, “IT governance must be implemented to sustain and enable business objectives and to mitigate associated risks” (Devos et al., 2012, p.4). Therefore Smiths’ plan to transform IT focused on the five key areas of IT governance.

I learned several lesson from the case study that has significant implications for my organization. First, I learned that my organization needs to align its IT and business strategy. Second, it needs to benchmark its IT capacity, capacities, and structure and highlighted the related weaknesses and concerns. Third the organization needs to find out the right solutions by getting consultancy from some experts or skillful people to address those concerns and weaknesses. Finally, the organization needs to develop and implement a transformational plan for aligning IT and business strategy for reaching its growth and success. I can contextualize and apply in learning in my organization. I will spend time with the CEO and senior management to introduce them the importance of aligning IT with business strategies. Next based on my learning in this course, I will conduct a comparative study of my organization to benchmark it in terms of IT and identify the areas for improvement. In addition, in consultation with the concerned people and using my learning in this course, I will develop a transformational plan and implement it

Make information security risk management an integral part of your organization’s management cadence. Emphasize the need to communicate and consult with both external and internal stakeholders, while continuously monitoring and reviewing your organization’s risks (including linkage with Security Operations Center playbooks and CSIRT response scenarios).

Alignment of an enterprise’s goals with its IT1 and IS1 systems has been a challenge ever since IT became a business enabler. Proposing an IT alignment requires a thorough understanding of the business goals of the enterprise and the knowledge that alignment is an iterative process which requires constant measurement and honing (Chan, 2002). Enterprises often face the problem of balance of priorities between IT and Business objectives. This report deals with one such case that faced alignment and prioritization hardships resulting in an unclear approach to achieve a corporate strategy.

In today’s world Information and technology (IT) has change the way of company’s business processes; they are interacting with their customers through Internet online at home or on mobile phone. Their way of delivering services are also changed because of that and now there customer scope is wider. Now with the help of IT they don’t have to present everywhere physically. The key factor behind the success of business is effective and effective IT alignment with business strategies and processes. Necessity of alignment is felt in numerous articles and case studies. As per one

How it can go wrong - key lessons to learn from IS/IT Strategy implementation Table of Contents

A risk is event or occurrence upon which its materialising would disrupt the attainment of project objectives, therefore a risk management plan is that which is prepared to identify, assess, report, mitigate and monitor risks. It outlines clearly how risk management activities will be performed, recorded, and monitored and in some case mitigated throughout the lifespan of the project. It is prepared, monitored and updated by the project manager for the primarily the project sponsor and team officials, as it affords the opportunity to prioritize risks. Many experts refer to project managers as risk managers, Wysocki, (2009) and it is often assumed that anything bad that can happen to a project, will happen, hence the need for a project management plan, Olomolaiye, (2013).

Although communication and translation of strategy occur at the executive level, effective IT and business alignment must go beyond executive-level conversation to permeate the entire IT organization and its culture. Successful executives typically align by establishing a set of well-planned process improvement programs that systematically address obstacles to achieve full and meaningful engagement with the business1. Each organization has its own unique IT alignment needs and there are many areas in which executives can seek alignment, however, the following areas are the most important:

IT alignment is crucial for the growth of businesses and in the case of Volkswagen with several independent units, the alignment of their business with IT is more needed. This is because with the implementation of IT, it would be more conducive for Volkswagen to record and comprehend sales figures. Also the communication between these units is needed as they are not integrated throughout the enterprise so a technology based communication platform is required to align their business strategies. This alignment was achieved to some extent by the establishment of the Business Process, Technology and Organization (BPTO) which was an internal IT department to manage and prioritize IT projects in coordination with the IT steering committee (ITSC) which comprised of senior business and IT representative to guide the approval of the process. I feel that the workshop conducted by the

It is important for organisations to have a good understanding of their risks because they are often held liable for the actions of their employees (Fadun 2013). If risks are not well documented, it would be very difficult for different employees as well as management to all have the same understanding of the risks that face the organisation. If risks are not understood, they cannot effectively be prepared for or monitored.

There are many areas within the Information Security Policy one of the most important areas is Risk Management. Risk Management is what company’s use to mitigate the risks to their company and its assets. Risk management is a living document in the fact that it must be constantly reviewed and updated to stay current with the changing threats. The document should also be reviewed in the event that a significant breech or accident causes information loss.

Frenzel (2004) claimed that to be successful, a firm’s IT management team must take action on the following critical areas: business management issues; strategic and competitive issues; planning and implementation concerns; and operational items. If for any reason, the organisation experiences difficulties in the above areas, the manager will need to set goals and objectives to overcome and prevent these issues.