IT Strategic Alignment

Introduction 

Strategic management is the topic, which everyone is discussing in these days, especially in in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has devised a 10 years strategic plan 2030, which helped the entire country to understand and be aware of the importance of the strategic planning. Subsequently, if the government has a strategic plan in place to transform, the organization within the country should have a strategy in line with the overall governmental strategy. Hence, each department within the organization should also develop a strategic plan to help achieve the corporate business strategy. Typically, the strategy is derived from the company mission, vison, goals and objectives. Leading organization utilizes leading practices such as ITIL tools in a preparation of their strategic alignment. Demand management is a great process in which it obtains the corporate different requirements and translate these requirements into initiatives withing the organization Tactical plans to be implemented. By doing so the alignment is accomplished.

IT Strategic Alignment 

Having a strategic plan in place helps the organization to progress toward a specific direction that drive momentum and study growth to the business. If the wide corporate going in a direction A and the IT department going on a direction B. The expected growth might not be achieved. Hence, Strategic Alignment is vastly important for any organization to achieve its objectives. There are many leading practices to achieve strategic alignment. As a prominent standard in the market is Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies “COBIT” which consist of 40 IT processes. One of the 40 processes in COBIT 2019 is to Manage Strategy. The process contain many sub processes one of which is strategic alignment (ISACA,2019).   

IT Strategic Alignment Benefits and Challenges  

Strategic alignment is not easy and full of challenges. One of the main challenges that most IT departments faces that the organization does not have a corporate business plan. Hence, the IT department becomes blind towards the future. Another challenge is the lack of the tone of the Top. Without higher management commitment to achieve the business strategy and involving different organization departments, the alignment becomes almost impossible. Lastly, limited financial funding and hindrance to measure the return of investments. IT is one of the support services that is custodian of the information system and everyone looks into the department as a cost rather than an opportunity to optimize the human being laborious work and saving cost. One the other hand, once strategic aliment is achieved, the organization would have many advantages. One of which is the organization would be able to achieve its objectives and goals, be more market comparative and growing the company.  

KSA Leading Examples

The government of KSA is a well-known example of strategic management alignment. The country has announced its strategy to diversify its income and to be less dependent on oil. Hence, the government has established an office and called it the Vision realization office “VRO”. The VRO is responsible to ensure the alignment of the government with country strategy. Further, the VRO has opened VRO offices in each ministry. The VRO office in each ministry reported to the VRO head office in a monthly basis communicating the progress of the implementations and prioritizing the next month initiatives. In case of any deviations the VRO head office, provide directions to realign the government entities. 

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, strategic alignment is very impartment to be done in order for any organization to achieve its own plans. In the absence of the alignment, the implementation of the corporate strategy could fail and could also push the organization to be out of the market. There is no standard process to align the IT with business this can be achieved 

References: 

• ISACA (2019). Information Systems Audit and Control Association. COBIT 5: Enabling processes.
• Shiklo, B. (2017, December 27). Business-IT alignment: Challenges and rewards. Retrieved from https://www.scnso