Strategic IT alignment Projects. Towards Good Governance

The senior management of organisations frequently perceive IT Projects as merely technological in nature. They fail to realise that in reality, the mission of IT is to provide technology-based support to business processes that can be key to the organisation. This lack of understanding means that these IT projects are not aligned with the business objectives and that investments in resources and personnel are not adequately prioritised. This can lead to an opportunity loss: a mere computerising of the business is sought, and processes that could turn out to be transformative, generating added value, driving a true digital transformation of the business are overlooked. This article proposes a model for implementing and operating a portfolio of strategic IT projects. Based on Good Governance principles, these latter projects move strategic decision-making up to an organisation's senior management, succeeding in gradually implicating these managers into the IT strategy. But above all, the model succeeds in achieving the targeted strategic alignment of IT projects with the organisation's business objectives and interests. The model has already been implemented in fourteen medium and large size public universities. The follow-up through interviews of the nine longest-standing experiences—some are nearly a decade old—revealed that the portfolio implementation strategy had helped to markedly improve the following elements: the institutions’ state of maturity of Good Governance; senior management's involvement in IT projects; and the identification of the most interesting IT projects for the business. To conclude, based on our experience, we can affirm that the strategic IT alignment projects is an effective IT Governance tool and, by extension, an example of Good Governance practice.     

基于战略对应的IT项目组合选择模型

把信息技术项目当作组合来管理可以通过平衡风险和收益来促进企业目标和IT应用的结合,但由于决策信息的不确定性和IT项目目标与企业战略的难以对应,企业面临IT项目组合选择的挑战。构建基于战略对应的IT项目组合选择模型,其中模糊集和模糊层次分析法用来刻画不确定信息和评估IT项目风险、成本及收益,关键成功因素法用来提高IT项目与企业战略的对应,并建立模糊0－1整数规划。利用定性可能性理论把模糊组合选择模型转化为一般可求解的整数规划形式,最后用一个案例说明模型的用法。     

IT/Business alignment

Ohne Zusammenfassung

---

IT/Business alignment

     

IT alignment strategies for customer relationship management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is the overall process of building and maintaining profitable customer relationships by delivering superior customer value and satisfaction. A CRM strategy involves the entire enterprise and is employed on an ongoing basis. Despite the fact that CRM projects incur huge expenditures, a large percentage fails to achieve the stated objectives. Failure in CRM initiatives could be avoided if a firm's CRM strategies are intelligently linked with its employees, customers, channels, and IT infrastructure. In this paper, we focus on those linkages, particularly on the linkages between an organization's CRM strategies and its IT infrastructure. Even though the relationships between IT and business strategies have been extensively explored in the IT alignment literature, prior research has not addressed how a firm's CRM strategies are aligned with its IT infrastructure. In this paper, we investigate the issues relating to CRM-IT alignment based on an in-depth case study of a large, well-known Internet travel agency.     

IT alignment in small firms

This study focused on the alignment of business strategy and IT strategy among 256 small UK manufacturing firms. An instrument was developed and used to measure IT alignment in small firms. Evidence was gained of high IT alignment in some firms. The study also indicated that IT alignment was related to the firm's level of IT maturity and the level of the CEO's software knowledge, but did not seem to be linked to the CEO's involvement or the firm's sources of external IT expertise.     

Parametric image alignment using enhanced correlation coefficient maximization

In this work we propose the use of a modified version of the correlation coefficient as a performance criterion for the image alignment problem. The proposed modification has the desirable characteristic of being invariant with respect to photometric distortions. Since the resulting similarity measure is a nonlinear function of the warp parameters, we develop two iterative schemes for its maximization, one based on the forward additive approach and the second on the inverse compositional method. As it is customary in iterative optimization, in each iteration the nonlinear objective function is approximated by an alternative expression for which the corresponding optimization is simple. In our case we propose an efficient approximation that leads to a closed form solution (per iteration) which is of low computational complexity, the latter property being particularly strong in our inverse version. The proposed schemes are tested against the Forward Additive Lucas-Kanade and the Simultaneous Inverse Compositional algorithm through simulations. Under noisy conditions and photometric distortions our forward version achieves more accurate alignments and exhibits faster convergence whereas our inverse version has similar performance as the Simultaneous Inverse Compositional algorithm but at a lower computational complexity.     

Post-merger IT integration strategies: An IT alignment perspective

When a company decides to merge with or to acquire another company, a major question is to what extent to integrate the information technologies and the organization. Interpreting merger objectives to proper IT integration strategies is a complex and time-consuming process, due to a lack of explicit understanding of the problems involved. The current literature in this field is meager and has not yet resulted in a theory. For this purpose, we developed a variant of the IT alignment model. In this model, we identify three ambition levels of mergers and IT integration from the literature. Additionally, we describe four integration methods that fit with these ambitions. The relations between these objectives and methods are moderated by contextual factors. Three hospital cases, with different merger and IT integration ambitions, describe the practice of this model. The case studies also add several new variables and relations to it. This result facilitates further research in post-merger IT integration by delivering an empirical research model.     

Electronic portfolios revisited: The efolios project

Electronic portfolios show considerable pedagogical, student-outcomes, and program assessment promise but have been plagued by numerous logistical and implementation problems caused by the software and by students having to learn a great deal about electronic writing to put together a viable electronic portfolio. This article describes using an efolios project to solve these problems, enabling students to concentrate on writing rather than on technology and to create an electronic environment conducive to student-outcomes and program assessment.     

Simulating the dynamic scheduling of project portfolios

A main challenge in project management is to provide methodologies that facilitate coordination among the projects in a portfolio or in a firm. Each incoming project in an existing portfolio affects its schedule, the resources availability and the planned performance. There are no analytical solutions for the problem of dynamic scheduling of resources for multiple projects in real time. Mathematical approaches, like integer programming or network based techniques, cannot describe the complexity of real problems (multi-projects environments have many interrelated elements), and have difficulties to adapt the analysis to dynamic changes.We propose a multi-agent system, where projects negotiate the procurement of resources through an auction mechanism all over the portfolio life. Both, projects and resources are modelled as agents. Projects demand resources for fulfilling their scheduled planned work, whereas resources offer their capabilities and workforce. This framework allows project portfolio management and the assessment in the decision of acceptance/rejection new projects.     

Optimal global alignment of signals by maximization of Pearson correlation

The problem of detecting the similarity between noisy signals obtained from electronic instrument measurements arises in several different contexts and it is approached with specific strategies accordingly. In this paper we propose a simple and general method for the comparison of noisy signals of different lengths. Assuming any a-priori knowledge about two noisy signals, their degree of similarity can be detected by computing the global alignment that maximizes their Pearson correlation. The Pearson correlation coefficient is a widely used measure of linear dependence between two random variables of the same length. The optimal alignment of two signals with respect to the Pearson correlation identifies the sub-regions of the two signals that exhibit the highest pairwise degree of similarity. We show that the optimal alignment of two signals by maximization of the Pearson correlation can be computed in (quadratic) polynomial-time by a simple application of the Needleman-Wunsch algorithm. Our approach can be used for the comparison of one-dimensional signals, multi-dimensional signals and multiple-alignments of (one-dimensional or multi-dimensional) signals.     

A Strategic Approach to IT Investments

In today's climate, strategic planning for IT investments must be based on understanding how organizational information constants (i.e., the information involved in managing resources and providing customer service) are affected by a turbulent technology and business environment that demands change. An effective approach begins with identification of the organization's real costs of information and proceeds to development of a dynamic object-based information model that services the needs of value streams rather than of traditional functional hierarchies.     

Enterprise architecture,IT effectiveness and the mediating role of IT alignment in US hospitals

Despite the possible benefits of implementing healthcare information technologies, successful implementation of effective healthcare information technology is constrained by cultural and regulatory concerns and technical obstacles encountered when establishing or upgrading an organisation's enterprise infrastructure. In this paper, we advance Ross' four‐stage model of enterprise architecture maturity as a valuable IT resource for helping healthcare organisations sustain a competitive advantage. We use partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling to analyse survey data from 164 US hospitals at different stages of EA maturity. Our results provide evidence that enterprise architecture maturity directly influences the effectiveness of hospitals' IT resources for achieving strategic goals. Further, enterprise architecture maturity indirectly influences the effectiveness of IT resources when IT alignment is incorporated as a mediating variable. We discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice and suggest opportunities for future research.     

Applying Strategic Thinking beyond IT Management

IT managers need clear strategies to rapidly fix problems. They need to think strategically to maximize opportunities, handle risks, and widen the lead.     

IT infrastructure capabilities and IT project success: a development team perspective

In this research we investigate how IT infrastructure capabilities are related to IT project success from a development team perspective. We first conduct an extensive literature review and summarize the insights to suggest an IT infrastructure base model. Drawing upon several other bodies of literature, particularly the psychology literature, we then build upon the base model to propose an integrative research model for IT project success that considers both actual and perceived effects of IT infrastructure capabilities. This research model argues that (1) teamwork quality mediates the effect of technical and human IT infrastructure capabilities on IT project success, and (2) team perceptions of both IT infrastructure and team capabilities shape team perceived likelihood of project success, which subsequently affects team commitment that is crucial to IT project success. We also propose a direct-effect model that directly links all constructs to IT project success so that we can test the efficacy of our proposed research model by comparing all three models. We then collect empirical data (n = 91) through an online survey of CIO/CTOs and team leaders. All three models are evaluated and compared using the partial least squares method. The results show strong support for the proposed research model except for two IT infrastructure components. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of the findings, and suggest several ways this research can be extended.     

A roadmap of financial measures for IT project ROI

Organizations have spent billions of dollars in implementing and subsequently repairing, removing, or altering enterprise-wide IT systems for managing finances, customer relationships, human resources, manufacturing resources, and supply chains. Of all IT systems, those for enterprise resource planning (ERP) are among the most difficult to implement. These products provide turnkey automated processes while sharing common data across an organization. Unsuccessful or grossly underestimated efforts to implement ERP tools have resulted in massive financial failures and corporate process disarray for many organizations. Various financial techniques can help organizations select the right projects and better manage the implementation of enterprise systems. The roadmap describes key practices in the fields of financial management and quantitative analysis.     

Strategic context and patterns of IT infrastructure capability

The importance of a firm's information technology (IT) infrastructure capability is increasingly recognised as critical to firm competitiveness. Infrastructure is particularly important for firms in industries going through dynamic change, for firms reengineering their business processes and for those with multiple business units or extensive international or geographically dispersed operations. However, the notion of IT infrastructure is still evolving and there has been little empirically based research on the patterns of IT infrastructure capability across firms.We develop the concept of IT infrastructure capability through identification of IT infrastructure services and measurement of reach and range in large, multi-business unit firms. Using empirical case research, we examine the patterns of IT infrastructure capability in 26 firms with diverse strategic contexts, including different industry bases, level of marketplace volatility, extent of business unit synergies and the nature of firm strategy formation processes. Data collection was based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods with multiple participants.More extensive IT infrastructure capability is defined as a combination of more IT infrastructure services and more reach and range. More extensive IT infrastructure capability was found in firms where: (i) products changed quickly; (ii) attempts were made to identify and capture synergies across business units; (iii) there was greater integration of information and IT needs as part of planning processes; and (iv) there was greater emphasis on tracking the implementation of long term strategy. These findings have implications for both business and technology managers particularly in regard to how firms link strategy and IT infrastructure formation processes.     

提高IT运维效率的策略分析

信息系统运维对于系统的安全稳定运行有着重大意义。在进行相关运维工作时,务必保持运维服务的高质量和高效率。基于此,笔者主要研究了如何提高IT行业中的网络运维管理效率,分析了当下IT行业中的网络运维管理,并且指出了存在的不足,最后针对存在的不足提出了具有针对性的解决措施,希望为相关工作提供参考。