The role of Business Aligned IT in business

Information Technology has become a key business function for almost every organisation at all sizes of the overall business spectrum, right across the world. It is key however to have an IT infrastructure that works and one which is overall easy to handle and manage. Business IT alignment is the correspondence between the business and the client and its members of staff. An organization has successfully aligned IT strategy to business strategy when there is the means for it work in an easy way.

These facts underscore the critical importance of effectively setting and closely aligning employee and business goals to drive the success of your company. Aligning your IT strategy and business strategy is an ongoing process. As these changes occur, business leaders update their strategies accordingly. More often than not, however, they neglect to focus on the impact to IT. IT must adjust in order to best support these changes and as a means to be able to keep a business moving in the right overall direction. Likewise, technology evolves at a breakneck pace. Organizations see the significant capital investment they have made in certain technologies, and are hesitant to abandon legacy systems in favor of new and possibly outsourced solutions because of the additional costs and challenges.

With the importance that technology plays in helping organizations meet their objectives, it makes sense for the information technology (IT) plan and the overall strategic plan to be in alignment. The reasons for failure include such factors as unclear communication of the strategy throughout the organization, expectations that aren't clearly defined, goals and objectives that aren't measurable, a vision that is difficult or impractical to implement, and other common problems. Also, some IT professionals are more focused on gadgetry and technowizardry than on how technology aids the business.

While most associations today have either a strategic or operating plan that identifies business goals and objectives, many of these plans are still missing a few key components: the enabling technologies that are required to support each of these initiatives, established performance metrics, and the built-in business intelligence to track performance. The lack of these elements doesn't mean that the IT department is not doing its job and doesn't have a strategy to implement its technology initiatives. What this scenario really indicates is that the overall strategic plan and the IT strategic plan are not aligned.