Strategic alignment of the information system
The Henderson and Venkatraman model and its four perspectives, McFarlan's grid, the IT master plan, the project portfolio weighed by value and risk, and shadow IT as a symptom.
- 26 cards
- 5 topics
- Free
The outline, topic by topic
Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
- Concepts
- Questions
- Sort and link
- Scenarios
- Understand
A few cards from the deck
Strategic alignment: what is it?
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Consistency between what the organisation seeks to become and what its information system does and prepares, in both directions.
An information system may work perfectly and serve no objective: this misalignment is what is to be avoided.
An estate agency handles its listings on paper and could run for a week without IT, but it is preparing an online viewing and signing platform meant to become its main channel. Which box of McFarlan's grid is it in?
- Turnaround
- Support
- Factory
- Strategic
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Turnaround
Low dependence on current systems, high importance of future ones: that is the turnaround box. Strategic would mean already being highly dependent, factory is the reverse of this case, and support combines two lows.
The Henderson and Venkatraman model distinguishes business strategy, information system strategy, … and ….
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The Henderson and Venkatraman model distinguishes business strategy, information system strategy, organisation and infrastructure.
The first two domains belong to strategy, the other two to implementation; alignment lies in their consistency.
Henderson and Venkatraman model: what is it?
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A model placing alignment between four domains: business strategy, information system strategy, organisation and infrastructure, and describing four perspectives for linking them.
The perspectives are strategy execution, technology transformation, competitive potential and service level: they differ in their starting point and the direction of the link.
The sales department pays for an online tool the IT department does not know about, and customer records diverge. Which solution addresses the cause?
- Block the tool's site at the company firewall and report it to management
- Buy additional servers to host all the customer records
- Change the backup, since the records diverge
- Answer the need with an official tool, regulate the tolerated ones
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Answer the need with an official tool, regulate the tolerated ones
The cause is a business need with no official answer. Blocking without answering moves it to another tool, and the divergences come from two data sources, not from backup.