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The alignment issue was addressed in several researches and numerous methods, techniques and tools were proposed. Choosing the most suitable approach to a specific need is a challenging task. This paper describes a characterization framework that can be applied for evaluating different alignment approaches, with the aim of discovering similarity, maturity, capability to measure, model, asses and evolve the alignment level existing among business and technological assets of an enterprise. A literature review was executed by applying the proposed framework to alignment research approach published in the Information & Management Journal and Journal of Strategic Information Systems. The achieved evaluation results are presented.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is one of cloud computing offerings that attract organisations as a potential solution in reducing their IT cost. However, the functionality and reliability of the SaaS model is still questionable and raises concerns and hesitations in its adoption. This chapter proposes a framework that enables an organisation to assess its current IT landscape and provides readiness assessment for SaaS adoption. The framework adapts Business Aligned IT Strategy (BAITS) methodology as its foundation. A case study of a local council in UK is used to validate.

This research aims to provide a concrete description of the influences from a financial services provider’s strategic orientation on its business-IT alignment practices. Adopting an in-depth, qualitative case study design, several semi-structured interviews were conducted. Interview data was analysed by using a customized reference framework for the governance and implementation of business-IT alignment initiatives. The case study induced insights about the influences of (1) the IT legacy, (2) the existence of more opaque business goals or an unclear definition of them and (3) a low level of inter-departmental collaboration. The expertise of an external partner favoured streamlining the provider’s service delivery, yet influenced the existing practices which are more focused on customer service. The new strategic focus is based on the need for growth and the dependence on external know-how. This is the first business-IT alignment study from a financial services provider offering pivotal services in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

There are different ways of defining business and IT alignment. On one end it is possible to look at the alignment from the strategic perspective; on another end we can go down to the small granularity manual and software functions to see how they are related via human-computer interfaces. In this paper we take a work systems perspective in addressing the alignment between business and IT. In particular, we consider service systems by describing the services at several levels of granularity where they can be instantiated in manual, semi-automatic, and automatic modes of functioning. This perspective helps to address some design challenges for flexible work systems that require intention- and situation-dependent alignment between human and artificial work to manage multiple options of heterogeneous service configurations. The proposed alignment approach is illustrated by education demand and offer correspondence monitoring services.

Business/IT alignment has become one of the most relevant concerns on organizations. Enterprise Architecture (EA) and ITIL, two distinct governance approaches with different perspectives, have become recently dominant between practitioners. However, parallel EA and ITIL projects can lead to wasted resources and a duplication of costs and efforts. In this paper we propose an EA and ITIL integration using ArchiMate as a common frame of reference. We also want to point out that implementing ITIL is like implementing any other architecture change and demonstrate it by using TOGAF to perform an ITIL implementation on ArchiSurance, a fictitious organization from the well known ArchiMate case study.

Digital natives are increasingly populating organizations’ management. As they have higher expectations of IS accommodating their non-functional user preferences, the frontend application design of management support systems (MSS)—as managers’ direct user-interface—plays an increasingly dominant role. By means of using new-generation managers’ perspective of a business/IT alignment, this article proposes a method for a more business-driven IS design. We obtain both a set of business-driven MSS requirements and—applying this approach—initial design guidelines. We evaluate our approach with respect to the state of the art and propose avenues for future research.

It is widely recognized that a large percentage of IT initiatives fail from a business perspective. This is attributed to many factors, namely system complexity and change pace. We believe that the system development process itself is a crucial aspect of this state of affairs and a paradigm shift is required. There is a lack a common set of concepts and language to use through an IT development process. Essentially, appropriate models and founded theory for articulating the teleological and ontological perspectives of a system are necessary. In this paper, we present and discuss an innovative value-oriented approach to System Design and Engineering. Our contribution begins by identifying a relevant problem space regarding current approaches, particularly the lack of a sound structure to model a service system’s purpose. We believe that system modeling with a market mindset will help improving quality and improve change response. The approach draws from a combination of theory based on Enterprise Engineering, Service Science and Value Modeling. A four-layer framework (System, Service, Value and Purpose) is pointed as a conceptual solution for simultaneously representing relevant concerns for promoting dynamic alignment between Business and IT.

Recently a new version of COBIT, the good-practice framework for enterprise governance of IT, was released. Although is it not always clearly articulated in its documentation, this new COBIT 5 framework incorporates many concepts and theories out of the IT and general management literature. This paper wants to position COBIT as a framework for enterprise governance of IT, and illustrates how the core principles and building blocks of the framework are derived from insights from literature. Based on this discussion, research questions for future research around enterprise governance of IT and COBIT 5 are proposed and discussed. As such, this paper wants to contribute to the exploration on how a practice-oriented framework such as COBIT could be used in future research activities.

Most of today's products and services are software-based. Organizations that develop software want to maintain and improve their competitiveness by controlling software-related risks. To do this, they need to align their business goals with software development strategies and translate them into quantitative project management. There is also an increasing need to justify cost and resources for software and system development and other IT services by demonstrating their impact on an organization's higher-level goals. For both, linking business goals and software-related efforts in an organization is necessary. However, this is a challenging task, and there is a lack of methods addressing this gap.

REFINTO is a requirement engineering framework and tool aimed at facilitating business-IT alignment by using functional and non-functional domain ontologies to guide the rapid application development (RAD) process in financial service software development. In this paper we present the REFINTO measurement and evaluation mechanism for assessing alignment at the tactical and operational levels leveraging the REFINTO framework and tool. The mechanism is based on the Balanced Scorecard and Strategic Alignment Maturity Model. The mechanism offers an innovative and practical method of measuring alignment on a more granular level – per project basis – rather than on high level strategic indicators that often fail to identify and assess the contribution of alignment factors with accuracy. The research described in this paper has been applied to support RAD projects in a top 5 investment bank helping minimize business-IT misalignment prevalent in the RE stage of RAD projects resulting in shorter IT application service delivery times and enhanced quality of IT applications.

Nowadays, the business IT alignment has become a priority in most large organizations. It is a question of aligning the information system on the business strategies of the organization. This step is aimed at increasing the practical value of the information system and makes it a strategic asset for the organization. Many works showed the importance of documentation, the analysis and the evaluation of business IT alignment, but few proposed solutions applicable to the strategic and functional level. This paper aims has to fill this gap by proposing a simple approach for modeling enterprise strategy in the context of strategic alignment. This approach is illustrated by case study of a real project in a Moroccan public administration.

A key factor for a successful organization, in a current dynamic environment, is effective information technology (IT) supporting business strategies and processes. Aligning IT with business depends on many factors, including the level of communication and cooperation between top management of organizations and top management of IT departments. This paper builds on the rules published in [5] which create prerequisites for the achievement of business and IT alignment. The paper discusses the outcomes of the survey realized in six hundred organizations operating on the Czech market. The survey aimed to determine whether the organization meets the basic assumptions, for it to be potentially mature in business/IT alignment, in order to select such organizations for future research into this matter. Characteristics of such organizations were deduced from the survey data. Survey results and analyses provide the base and direction for further business/IT alignment maturity research.

Nowadays, the business IT alignment has become a priority in most large organizations. It is a question of aligning the information system on the business strategies of the organization. This step is aimed at increasing the practical value of the information system and makes it a strategic asset for the organization. Many works showed the importance of documentation, the analysis and the evaluation of business IT alignment, but few proposed solutions applicable to the strategic and functional level. This paper aims has to fill this gap by proposing a simple approach for modeling enterprise strategy in the context of strategic alignment. This approach is illustrated by case study of a real project in a Moroccan public administration.

In recent years, Enterprise Architecture has gradually emerged as the preeminent means to change and transform large organizations. By employing Architectural Principles, organizations strive to master the complexity inherent in business processes and IT system and their harmonious alignment. Unfortunately, very rarely has the coevolutionary and emergent nature of alignment been taken into consideration in IS research. Even if different approaches focus on business IT alignment, most of them have a tendency to focus on alignment as a state or an outcome. In this paper we argue that a dynamic approach is necessary in order to achieve business IT alignment in a long-term perspective. Furthermore we demonstrate that the choice of architectural principles has an impact on the ability to achieve and maintain operational as well as structural alignment. A case study is used as a basis for the analysis. The conclusion is that an Enterprise-centric architecture can create freedom of action for dynamic operational alignment, and that Business-oriented IT management can keep the IS Architecture aligned with the Business Architecture in a long term perspective.

In this paper, the authors discuss an instrument for the assessment of enterprise coherence (Enterprise Coherence Assessment, ECA). The term ‘coherence’ is used rather than the more common term ‘alignment’, since the latter is generally associated with bringing two concepts in line (typically ‘Business’ and ‘IT’). The word coherence, however, stresses the need to go beyond this. Coherence involves connections and synchronisation between all important aspects of an enterprise. ‘IT’ and ‘Business’ just being two of these aspects.

Business/IT alignment means the degree to which the information technology mission, objectives, and plans are supported by the business mission, objectives, and plans. The aim of this research is the maturity assessment of Business/IT alignment by an intelligent system. Here, a Fuzzy Expert System has been designed in which main effective variables on Business and IT alignment have been considered as Inputs and level of maturity as output. Then, system rules have been extracted by the IT experts and the system has been developed with the use of FIS tool of MATLAB software. Finally, the presented steps have been run in an Iranian Bank as empirical study.

In the information age, no organization can thrive without harnessing the power of IT. The effective deployment of IT to achieve business goals and gain competitive advantage requires the alignment of business and IT strategies of organizations. Using the Strategic Alignment Maturity model, this paper evaluates strategic alignment maturity of Customs Excise Preventive service, a frontline public organization charged with trade facilitation in Ghana. Strategic alignment maturity is at level 3; which implies the existence of an established process to leverage IT for efficiency and effectiveness. Efforts are required to strengthen alignment and fully harness the potential of IT to facilitate trade in Ghana.

In the last few years, service-oriented computing has become an emerging research topic in response to the shift from product-oriented economy to service-oriented economy and the move from focusing on software/system development to addressing business-IT alignment. From an IT perspective, there is a proliferation of methods and languages for describing Web services. There has not been as much work in defining languages or ontologies for describing services from business perspectives.

How are companies managed today and what part does state-of-the-art business/IT alignment play? Executive information systems (EIS) should support top management in “managing a company.” But many executives complain that EIS bear little relevance to their management task. This article examines the role of business/IT alignment within a new-generation EIS architecture and contributes a business-driven model. A prototype demonstrates an instantiation of this approach. The findings are synthesized to seven recommendations on business/IT alignment that should lead to better EIS architecture.

Enterprises are transforming into enterprises which follow from a business as well as from an IT perspective a service-oriented paradigm. This change towards service-oriented enterprise and IT architectures has to be reflected in the methodologies of developing whole application landscapes as well as individual applications. Quasar (Quality Software Architecture) has been developed as the standard architecture and development method of Capgemini sd&m for individual applications. For the development of service-oriented enterprise application landscapes, Quasar Enterprise has been designed. Both Quasar and Quasar Enterprise are integrated with each other within a holistic software engineering method to seamlessly cover the full development lifecycle of service-oriented application landscapes, from business modeling and service design to actual software development. In this paper, we illustrate how a company-wide ontology of development artifacts serves as the key feature for integrating both methods.

Health Information Systems (HIS) are required to flexibly support complex clinical processes involving multiple user groups at different locations throughout a healthcare organization. Healthcare processes, however, are subject to change. A “responsive IT infrastructure” is required as a basis for rapid and effective business-IT alignment. In this article we describe the conditions (available products and standards) under which a strategy for system evolution is to be defined. A strategy based on an application framework and an integrated CASE tool has been elaborated and established at the university hospital in Marburg. Based on XP (extreme programming) and participatory design the software engineering process has been adapted and embedded into a continuous management process in which IT projects are prioritized according to current business needs. The goal is to minimize project risk and to achieve a continuously evolving information system which is driven by the actual needs for process improvement.