IT Alignment

Bridging business and IT strategy

Business strategies and IT strategies are interdependent. IT strategies must follow business strategies (e.g. business processes must be supported by IT). From the other direction, IT investments enable and extend business strategies (e.g. new business models by digital technologies). Both directions must be adequately considered in strategic IT planning.

IT Alignment is a capability of strategic IT planning and designates the degree to which the IT investments of an enterprise directly enable and support the business strategy. The objective is to achieve and maintain consistency between business and IT strategies. IT Alignment leverages value from IT investments and increases enterprise performance and competitive advantage as a result.

The IT Alignment Framework by IT-ALIGNMENT.ORG is a lean and effective guide for strategic IT planning to accomplish IT Alignment. It describes processes, roles, and techniques for effective application in practice.

The IT Alignment Framework possesses unique features:

• Best practice for strategic IT planning
• Usability - it is easy to implement and run
  
• State-of-the-art framework founded on latest scientific findings
• Complementary to other relevant IT frameworks, i.e., it closes gaps and fits to other guides for project management, architecture management, and IT management (e.g. PMBOK, TOGAF, COBIT, ITIL)

The IT Alignment Framework is value-focused to improve the financial performance of an enterprise. Further, it supports mastering the digital transformation of businesses.

Pictures (Glacier 3000; Costa Rica) by C. Gellweiler