The Impact of Information Technology Infrastructure Flexibility on Strategic Alignment and Applications Implementation

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.

The company is served by an IT infrastructure comprising of an amalgamation of off the shelf software and components and locally developed applications and middleware. The hardware infrastructure is by and large robust and capable of withstanding any current operational peaks. The infrastructure employs a high level of redundancy and good recovery and password management systems, so there is little risk of high business impact in the case of IT issues. No architecture document exists and minimal change control is executed.

In order to leverage IT for the benefit of the whole organization enterprise architecture must be developed to oversee IT strategy. Centralizing IT strategy at the start of the new business strategies will be important to make sure IT and business are working together with common goals that deliver the most value. The following steps are to be completed within each department:

expansion. The following are the key aspects of the IT infrastructure that must be put in place to

As we have learned throughout this course, the value of information technology has been one of the most influential aspects of conducting business. Information technology is used on a daily basis at all organizations, and it has grown exponentially throughout the course of history. Organizations purchase and implement information technology to gain a competitive edge over their competitors. This dates all the way back to the invention of the steam engine, in the mid-1800s, which allowed finished products to be mass transported by the railroad system. The companies and corporations that used the rail system gained a competitive advantage over smaller companies that used other modes for transporting their

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

McKeen, James D; Smith, Heather (2012). IT strategy: Issues and practices (2nd ed.). Boston: Prentice Hall. Kindle Edition.

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.

Such is the change that is difficult for all entities to keep up with it - even for Tech companies is a heavy burden that limits and endanger their growth. This raises the question, “does our business needs to have in-house IT infrastructure or can be outsourced?”

Information Technology (IT) is a foundation for conducting business today. It plays a critical role in increasing productivity of firms and entire nation. It is proven that firms who invested in IT have experienced continued growth in productivity and efficiency. Many companies' survival and even existence without use of IT is unimaginable. IT has become the largest component of capital investment for companies in the United States and many other countries.

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.

This portfolio focus on what I have learned during the whole IT Strategy and Control paper, a critical reflection of this paper would be provided. This reflection includes the key points, support reference and the demonstration of my own understanding about the paper itself and all of my personal understandings are based on the learning outcome of this paper. In the first part of this portfolio, I would discuss all the key IT Operations Management framework which have been introduced in the paper, the analysis of the processes based on my own understanding would be given. In the second part, analyze processes required for aligning IT infrastructure and operations with the business goals of an organization would be talked about, and I would focus a business organization which has been mentioned in the caselets as a sample. In the third part, some critical evaluate operational IT organizations and their processes against the studied models would be listed and analyzed. In the last part, the recommendations and analysis of my own would be given against those organizations (caselets) which have some problems and current issues arising from the implementation of the IT framework.

 Able to handle the exponential growth of digital data and the globalization of the

Information Technology (IT): The hardware and software technologies a firm needs to achieve its business objectives (Kenneth C Laudon and Jane P Laudon., 2010).

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.