The Role Of Internal Planning On Strategic Planning

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.

Architecture must be developed in order to oversee IT strategy to benefit the whole organizational enterprise. 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:

The original business strategy, which is still not fully implemented or thought out, is still intact and being somewhat utilized. Part of getting from where we are now to where we want to go, is to put together a comprehensive business and growth strategy plan that, brings about the most results. The original business strategy resembled that of a small business that had the most growth with the least risk. With little risk also means little or no technology. The company has changed, the competition is more intense and the economy is weakened. A new strategy that aligns with technology is essential in order to be successful. As business and technology have become increasingly intertwined, the strategic alignment of the two has emerged as a major corporate issue. With the emergence of IT from the back room to the forefront of business brings the alignment issue under the spotlight like never before. And as

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:

In his article, “The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning,” Henry Mintzberg (1994) provides his views on the process of strategic planning. He offers that most companies and organizations start a strategic planning process with little understanding of the definition or actual purpose of planning. He tends to admonish much of the conventional understanding concerning strategic planning and proposes his interpretations. He states that “the most successful strategies are visions, not plans” (Mintzberg, 1994, p. 107).

Human Resource Manager focuses on three main areas which are Recruitment of, Management of and providing training for the people who are employed within the organisation. This department deals with hiring, health and safety, motivation for the employees (such as bonuses) and managing the performance. An organisation that I will be relating this too is Tesco. There are three main factors that Tesco has to consider and they are Internal planning, External planning and Employee skills.

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.

Unfortunately this long standing notion amongst the board that IT appears to be more of a waste of time and resources than an opportunity for change and capitalization of strengths across the business is a major issue when switching from a bottom line to top line approach. Co-operation between the IT strategy and the business strategy is a fundamental step towards aligning the business for top-line growth. As such the relationship between the architect and senior management must be open and unbiased for the best results to be yielded.

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.

McKeen, J. and Heather, S. (2011) IT Strategy - Issues and Practices. 2nd Edition. ISBN-10: 0132145669. Boston: Prentice Hall.

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.

Achieving business and IT alignment is a difficult task. To accomplish this, IT strategy should closely support business goals. According to Schiller (2015), the misalignment of business and IT strategy results from issues in one of these 5 areas of IT alignment; Strategy-Driven, Operational, Calendar, Economic or Cultural alignment. Breaking down the IT alignment process into these 5 parts can make business and IT strategy alignment easier to accomplish. Priority should be given to business and IT alignment in the overall strategic plan of a

In every long term strategic planning, many companies considered data collection and analysis as a fundamental activity. Big companies that strive to achieve a sustainable advantage over their competition made use of information management system to help them analyze their data. These activities have evolved to what is now known as business intelligence of BI.

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.

Companies over the last decade, has recognized that their survival to a lesser or greater extent, depends either entirely or partially to appropriate information system. It is established, based on lesson learned from both failed and successful organizations, that an information system strategy are to support or aligned with, business strategy. Similarly the business strategy can influences the choice of Information System used in the organization. A business strategy entails futuristic organizational planning that result in companies gaining competitive advantage. It is direct linked to supporting area such as marketing, procurement, and information system. The case of Comair airline, even after acquisition by Delta