Strategic alignment maturity addresses the ability of organizations to adapt their IT and business strategies in a harmonious fashion. This alignment evolves into a relationship where the function of IT and other business functions adapt their strategies together. Early research on the topic has shown that organizations that show a high level of alignment maturity seem to be more capable of executing strategy as critical enablers of strategic alignment such as effective partnerships, communications, and governance manifest themselves through business-IT relationships and practices. This alignment of IT strategy and the organization’s business strategy is a fundamental principle that has been advocated for over a decade.
Within the strategic alignment maturity model, there are five conceptual levels;
1. Initial/Ad Hoc Process: Business and IT not aligned or harmonized
2. Committed Process: The organization has committed to becoming aligned
3. Established Focused Process: Strategic Alignment Maturity established and focused on business objectives
4. Improved/Managed Process: Reinforcing the concept of IT as a “Value Center”
5. Optimized Process: Integrated and co-adaptive business and IT strategic planning
As the business grows and increases the harmony between the IT strategy and business strategy, it climbs the conceptual levels of the model. As the level in the strategic alignment model rises, the alignment and convergence with the IT and business becomes more optimized. The alignment model suggests that IT strategies should both derive from and shape business strategies in a dynamic environment.
In order to decide which of the levels the organization fits into, there are levels of criteria to aid in the evalua...
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...nd flexibility while still retaining the competitive edge at each individual office.
In conclusion, classifying Metalco into a level of the strategic alignment maturity model can pose difficulty as not every criteria classification is straightforward. However, generalizing the strategic alignment criteria allows Metalco to fit within the four level of the maturity model. By leveraging IT assets on an enterprise-wide basis and the focus of applications systems is on driving business process enhancements to obtain sustainable competitive advantage, Metalco generally fits with these qualifications. Learning from their failures, they were also able to migrate and grow from a decentralized organizational structure to a better fitting centralized and federated structure. Although this move was reactive, it still positioned them to become successful in the long term.
In order to make the decision, this report measures the following qualitative and quantitative areas:
Strategic use of information systems is one of the most important issues facing firms in today’s business environment. Information systems (IS) can either enable or hinder business growth, so organizations must learn to use IS advantageously. The case study “Building Business Agility at Southwest Airlines” by Ross and Beath (2007) demonstrates how a firm can drive business success through a revolutionary change in its use of IS. In the following case analysis, I will introduce and evaluate Southwest Airlines, describe and analyze its approach to IS as outlined in “Building Business Agility at Southwest Airlines,” and provide future recommendations for the company.
Three questions guided to create competitive advantage of each charity. What Do you well? (Strengths). What do you do better than your competitors? (Competency) and How do you provide value? (Advantage).
Dess, G. G., Lumpkin, G. T., Eisner, A. B., & McNamara, G. (2012). Strategic Management: Text & Cases (6th Ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
• Strategic management involves both strategy formation, called it content) and also strategy implementation, called it process.
How a firm is managed will have a direct impact on how it gains, maintains, or loses its position in the marketplace. The strategies used often mean the difference between success and failure, particularly in today’s global economy. It is the goal of management to ensure that value is returned to the company for it efforts. Hitt (2015), Chapter 6, teaches the elements and workings of corporate level management. It explores how corporate level management executes it role to position the firm for a competitive advantage. This report discusses the features of corporate level management as taught by Hitt (2015) in Chapter 6. It uses as the basis for discussion an article by Winter and Jerrold (2011) on how the bear claw drywall repair clip was
Business strategy and structure have always been related. Organizational change involves innovation, process improvement, and organizational redesign (Galbraith and Lawler, 1993). They also noted that the hierarchical structure is related to changes in speed, quality and productivity. In recent years, the pace of change has accelerated so drastically that most organizational structures and management principles have no hope of adjusting or adapting (Hammer and Champy, 1993). Today’s changes are discontinuous and happening at a geometric rate. Organizations must be sufficiently agile to be instantly reconfigurable to meet new demands (Tetenbaum, 1998).
Along with the rapid development of economy and society, the companies have to own skills to adapt, cater, and transfer new knowledge, and try to modify their activities to reflect insights. Strategic management evolves
Information systems (IS) projects are vulnerable to resource cutbacks and the increasing complexity of systems and advances in information technology make finding the right personnel difficult and the associated development costs high. Good project management is essential for success. Some alignment methodologies include IBM's business systems planning (BSP), Robert Holland's strategic systems planning, James Martin's (1989) information engineering and method/1 from Anderson Consulting.
Effectively integrating information technology (IT) into an organization’s business processes is critical if the organization wants to increase productivity and remain profitable. IT includes items such as the systems software, application software, computer hardware, and the networks and databases that help manage the organization’s information. When implementing quality standards and processes that are forever changing in the IT world, organizations must balance these changes while continuing to rapidly implement new systems technologies in order to stay competitive.
While personnel may be the driving force to achieve goals, they need to be supported with resources, time and any number of items; this evaluation is for management to determine where they can provide assistance to the people. Organizations will often fall short in this area and either not recognize or not want to accept it until documented with measures and evidence. By having the organization evaluated as a whole, it possibly gives credence to their employees that the organization is supportive of their efforts. In turn, employees should be giving maximum effort towards achieving strategic goals by performing tasks as required.
Organizations can be configured in many different ways. Their overall classifications can be summarized by characteristics of complexity within the system, the level of formalization, and the centralization of decision-making power. The structure of each organization is influenced by many factors. Such factors include; the goods and services provided, the overall individuality of the staff providing the service and producing the products. The overall beliefs and values of the individuals performing the services that are being delivered, the technology that is utilized to help deliver the services and aid in product production, as well as the needs, desires, and generalized characteristics of the consumer population that requires or demand the product or service. (Yoder-Wise, 2007, p. 145) The organization will have different operating priorities based on its ownership. The main goal behind most business is to make money. The private owned institution strives to make its shareholders money, while a non-profit institution reinvests all of its revenue back into the orga...
Strategy formulation is the process of establishing the firm's mission, goals, and choosing among alternative strategies or plans; it involves and implies that preparing the best approach to respond to the circumstances of a firm's environment, whether or not its conditions are known in advance; being strategic and tactical, then, means being clear about the management's aims; being aware of the company's resources, and incorporating both into being consciously responsive to a dynamic environment (SM, 2010). As nearly all businesses have limited resources, top leaders and management must determine which alternative plans or strategies will do well to the organization most; strategic management requires attention to the big picture and the motivation to adapt to circumstances, and consists of the following aspects:
Organisational change can arise due to a change in strategy and this begins with examining capabilities and the internal environment. This is portrayed in the Strategy diamond. Firstly through arenas the organisation can plan where they will be active in and which part to place most emphasis on for example technologies or value creation strategies. Only after determining this can they implement a positive change, leading to the next element, vehicles to get them where they need to be such as alliances. This can lead to change in management along with strategic partnerships, and the way managers transition to this change will determine if the strategy impacts on the overall organisation in a way that reinforces its purpose and goals. Partnerships indicate how an organisation can strengthen its capabilities by merging with businesses who possess the skills they lack. (Carpenter et al. 2010)
A successful business strategy will identify changes in the external trends in the market place. Plan out what the company’s future direction is. Set out the goals for the management team. It will identify a vision of where the company wants to be in the future. Keep all employees informed of the direction of the company.