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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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。     

No time to waste: the role of timing and complementarity of alignment practices in creating business value in IT projects

Despite significant research progress, alignment-related issues are among the top concerns of executives. Previous studies mostly focus on a company-wide strategic level of alignment; while this ‘top-down’ view has benefits, it largely ignores the operational practices that help achieve alignment in IT projects as well as the impact that timing and complementarity of practices have on achieving alignment. In our research we apply four alignment practices – communication, shared understanding, management commitment and IT investment evaluation – to individual IT projects rather than at a company level; specifically, we look at the role of timing and complementarity for these alignment practices throughout different project phases. A detailed analysis of six IT projects carried out at three companies in the telecommunications industry reveals that IT projects creating higher business value employ all four alignment practices immediately from the start. No project was able to recover from failing to establish these four alignment practices in the first phase. While supporting the importance of complementarity of alignment practices, our findings also add the importance of the earliness of this complementarity.     

企业级IT项目管理中多项目计划编制的研究

有效进行多项目管理是金融IT行业在IT项目管理中面对的关键问题。企业级项目管理需要在资源有限的情况下完成和企业战略密切相关的各项目的平衡和调度。如何确定各项目的优先级以及在优先级确定的情况下如何编制各项目的计划进度是多项目管理的核心和关键前提。首先分析了金融IT的特点,然后结合传统的甘特图计划方法,提出了一种优先级确定情况下项目计划编制简便方法,使得企业在实施多项目管理时能够参照进行计划安排,使得项目群整体最优从而提高企业核心竞争力。     

关于信息项目后评价的思考与建议

随着信息技术项目的大规模建设和应用,如何客观、公正地评价其效果成为各方关注的焦点。信息项目后评价已成为项目闭环管理的最后1个环节,评价工作也逐步开展起来。当前评价的重点是项目目标实现程度、项目实施组织管理、应用效果、影响与持续性。虽然通用的项目后评价方法可以应用于信息项目,但操作难度较大。因此,应重视信息项目后评价方法的研究,在实践中探索信息项目后评价的关键要素和指标,形成完善的后评价方法。     

Understanding the most critical skills for managing IT projects: A Delphi study of IT project managers

The skill requirements for project managers in information technology (IT) projects have not been widely studied in the past, especially in terms of their relative importance. We addressed this gap in the literature by conducting a Delphi study with 19 IT project managers (PMs). Among the list of 48 skills identified, our panelists selected 19 skills as being the most critical for IT PMs and then ranked them based on their relative importance. Follow-up interviews were conducted with selected panelists to gain insights into the importance of the top-ranked IT PM skills. We compare our results with two previous studies of IT PM skills and discuss the implications for research and practice.