1. 14 hours ago
Nikesh Bantu
Discussion 1
COLLAPSE
Top of Form
Most organizational policies fail during implementation. It
takes to experiment and experience to select a strategy. Getting
suggestions on strategies from main stakeholders and also
involving everyone to invest in the implementation plan.
Organization strategy talks about how a company or
organization can achieve its goals and objectives along with the
growth. Developing such an organization strategy for a
company will take different inputs and parameters from the
team, vendors, and stakeholders. Considering these parameters
together and defining the differences, knowing what is required
for the company and make changes accordingly.
To establish the strategy, companies follow IS strategy. It is a
document that establishes the path for an organization. This
document helps the company to know what they want, how to
reach a goal, what mistakes have taken place so far. One such
famous strategies are SWOT analysis, which has insights on
Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threats. Companies list
their monthly and yearly goals and objectives and take action on
their plans. Everyone in the company must know the mission
statement and the core values of what they are working on, and
the company is looking for. Once employees understand the
company's philosophy, mission, and goals, they connect their
work with the strategic priorities of the organization. This
creates a healthy environment between the employees of the
company and the company itself.
The organization that does not follow proper Business
Strategies faces different problems. Their thinking could be
very different, like a reactive way. The company will rarely

2. initiate ideas and wait to be for what to be told and what to do
or what actions are supposed to be taken. Often such companies
fail in considering potential impacts for long term goals and
actions. They are mostly focused on the short term. The
company will fear for changes and challenges.
Inputs from others are meaningless when there is no proper
strategy. Their goals and objectives would have flaws and rarely
or would work by luck.
The organization will assume all the tasks and actions equally,
without knowing what to prioritize first. Giving equal
importance would impact output. Thus they become inflexible,
as they have trouble altering their plans very often, and their
returns will be pretty low. Making adjustments and alterations
would consume a lot of time and investment. Such organizations
would not be interested in learning new things or methods as
their thinking is content with their current capacities. Mostly
they stick to the familiar paths and are very predictable.
With all these drawbacks or flaws, an Organization must follow
proper Strategic thinking. To do that, someone should take the
initiative along with the help of a team. Organizations must be
listing the objectives and performance measures for the
company. It should consider the financial perspective, Customer
perspective, and Internal perspective on how the company is
doing its traditional financial performance measures. Are the
customers satisfied? What all ways must this company should
excel in. Together these measures will drive the company to
think clearly and know how they are performing. Such
companies will attain profits, grow revenues, attract and retain
more customers.
References:
Zhang, L. (2015). Application of Probability and Mathematical
Statistics in Enterprise Risk Analysis. In International
Conference on Education, Management and Computing
Technology (ICEMCT-15).
Bottom of Form

3. 1 day ago
Shravani Kasturi
Discussion
COLLAPSE
Top of Form
It is important to understand some of the organization
approaches by creating a business strategy to help in driving the
organizational strategy and IS strategy. The management should
focus on the three business units to help in achieving the set
goals and objectives through relying on the business strategy in
managing a different business operation with the help of the IS
and organizational strategy (Teece, 2010). The implementation
of the business strategy helps in developing the approaches that
can be used in IS and organizational strategies in different
business sectors.
There are approaches that should be deployed to help the
management select effective leadership factors while
identifying the weaknesses in the business thus looking for the
best alternative choices that can help in achieving business
goals. Therefore, leadership skills are more useful to help the
management have various ideas used in business strategy to
help in IS strategy in hardware, data, and software management.
Therefore, in case there is cost-effective within business
strategies, therefore, the IS strategies will focus on the
expenditures and other useful factors while preventing the use
of the product's lowest cost. Moreover, in case the organization
strategy is not reliable with the business strategy, the
organization can fail to locate the effective responses to the
customers’ needs and locating the effective product
management while avoiding the risks that can accrue to
interfere with the business goals.

4. There are some of the occurrences where the business
management deploys the use if the IT to help in running
business strategies. The changes in technology should be
applicable and allow the organization to connect with its
customer's experiences and satisfaction needs. However, there
are occurrences causing IT risks which can influence business
operation requiring the use of the IT risks management helping
in securing the organization's confidential data concerning
customers' information. Moreover, there is useful information
that the management has to help in identifying different IT risks
that can interfere with the customer's experiences under the use
of business strategies as part of the PR (Dentchev, 2014). In
case the organization fails to involve the use of the business
strategies, they will fail to achieve their goals and objectives
while making the organization to make lower sales due to lack
of enough information concerning the market trend and
customers' experience in the product requirements.
References
Teece, D. J. (2010). Business models, business strategy and
innovation. Long range planning, 43(2-3), 172-194.
Dentchev, N. A. (2004). Corporate social performance as a
business strategy. Journal of Business Ethics, 55(4), 395-410.
Bottom of Form
Aligning IT and business strategy: an Australian university case
study
Alan Dent*
Information Systems and Infrastructure, Murdoch University,
Murdoch, WA, Australia

5. Alignment with business objectives is considered to be an
essential outcome of
information technology (IT) strategic planning. This case study
examines the process
of creating an IT strategy for an Australian university using an
industry standard
methodology. The degree of alignment is determined by
comparing the strategic
priorities supported by both the IT and university strategic
plans, using Sharrock’s
‘four agendas’ framework. The significant differences between
the two strategies are
examined and explained, revealing the need for IT strategic
planning methodologies to
include a framework to measure business alignment.
Keywords: alignment; business; information technology;
strategy
Introduction: technology in higher education
This case study presents an examination of the process of
creating an information
technology (IT) strategy for a small Australian university, and
the university’s attempt
to align IT to the business needs of the institution. The IT
strategy was developed over a
3-month period, commencing in March 2014, using a strategic
planning methodology
from an IT research and advisory firm.
The mass adoption of internet-enabled technologies and mobile
devices has
revolutionised both the way industries go about their business
and their consumers’

6. expectations. These devices are powered by constantly
improving communications
and computing infrastructure, which in turn is enabled by
Moore’s law, an observa-
tion about the rate of growth in semiconductor capacity
(doubling approximately
every two years). Moore’s law has become a metaphor for rapid
rates of growth/
change everywhere (Schaller, 1997, p. 58). Changing
technologies, services and
student/consumer expectations represent both an opportunity
and a threat for
universities everywhere, including Australian universities.
In their report on the effects of digital disruption on the
Australian economy, Deloitte
(2013) categorised education in the ‘Long Fuse, Big Bang’
quadrant, predicting a 15–50
per cent change in metrics over a period of 4–10 years, noting
government regulation as a
possible inhibitor of the rate of change. While the impact of
digital disruption is large, the
longer lead times give institutions a chance to (re)position
themselves to take advantage of
the new opportunities presented by the changing technology
landscape. In a report on the
future of Australian universities, Ernst and Young (2012)
identified the most significant
challenges currently facing higher education, including
technology, and highlighted three
business models likely to emerge in response to these
challenges: streamlined status-quo,
niche dominator and transformer.
*Email: [email protected]
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 2015

7. Vol. 37, No. 5, 519–533,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2015.1079395
© 2015 Association for Tertiary Education Management and the
LH Martin Institute for Tertiary Education Leadership and
Management
In this case study, the university strategic plan is firmly located
in the niche dominator
business model, targeting specific areas of strength and
focusing research and teaching
operations in these areas. One of the key features of this
business model is streamlining
the back office and reducing the cost of operations. This is
clearly the type of strategic
objective that IT could contribute to if it is properly aligned to
business strategies.
The business/IT alignment imperative
Alignment with the strategies and activities of the business has
been widely recognised
as one of the top issues or problems in IT strategy. In their early
attempt to define a
method of measuring this alignment, Reich and Benbasat (1996)
refer to prior examples
of this, dating back to the mid-1980s, around the time when the
first lower cost personal
computers (cheaper in comparison to mainframe computers)
were appearing in organisa-
tions in any numbers. Referring to the concept as a ‘linkage’
rather than as an
alignment, they defined it as ‘the degree to which the IT
mission, objectives, and

8. plans, support and are supported by the business mission,
objectives, and plans’
(Reich & Benbasat, 1996, p. 56).
Alignment is a priority for higher education IT, the first three
items on the
EDUCAUSE top 10 issues of 2014 also focus on business/IT
alignment (Grajek, 2014).
Similarly, the Council of Australian University Directors of IT
(CAUDIT) also focuses on
providing business solutions and alignment (CAUDIT, 2014).
Table 1 shows how each
body describes and ranks these priorities.
Creating better alignment of business and IT strategies to
provide valuable solutions to
the business are goals that dominate the IT profession in all
industries, but different types
of organisations present different challenges for those
responsible for making this happen.
The challenges facing a publicly listed, for-profit manufacturing
company will be very
different from those faced by a university with multiple
missions and broad-ranging social
responsibilities inherent in the public good aspects of higher
education. In itself, IT culture
Table 1. Comparison of relative priorities of IT/business
alignment.
Business solutions Business/IT alignment
EDUCAUSE Priority 1 Priority 2
Improving student outcomes through an
institutional approach that
strategically leverages technology

9. Establishing a partnership between IT
leadership and institutional leadership to
develop a collective understanding of
what information technology can deliver
Priority 3
Assisting faculty with the instructional
integration of information technology
CAUDIT Priority 1 Priority 6
Supporting and enabling teaching and
learning
Establishing a partnership between IT
leadership and institutional leadership to
develop a collective understanding of
what information technology can deliver
Priority 2
Supporting and enabling research
Source: CAUDIT (2014) and Grajek (2014).
520 A. Dent
differs from academic culture. Drawing from Albrecht et al.
(2004), Table 2 highlights
some of the potential difficulties.
With this level of potential gap between the business and IT, the
process of developing the
strategy is important. Figure 1 from Albrecht et al. (2004)
shows three methods of developing

10. IT strategies, each demonstrating a different level of
engagement with the business.
The case study
In this case study, the approach to IT strategy development
followed by the university
was an Alignment model. In this model, the business strategy is
developed first, and
then business and IT leaders collaborate to produce an IT
strategy to support it
(Albrecht et al., 2004). In the case study, the delay between
creation of the business
and IT strategic plans was nearly 2 years. Overall, the IT
strategic planning approach
undertaken was based on the Gartner IT strategic planning
model shown in Figure 2
(Schulte, 2015).
Table 2. Comparison of differences between Academic and IT
culture.
IT culture Academic culture
Emergent profession Mature profession
Change agent Values tradition and scepticism
Institutional focus Disciplinary focus
Focus on production Focus on innovation
Quest for consensus and alignment Quest for truth
Organisational anonymity Reputation driven
Activities/services rendered transparent Labyrinthine processes
and practices
Speed is a valued objective Speed may be antithetical to quality
Short life cycle for products, services,
outcomes and underlying technology

11. Work products designed to endure for years, decades
or even centuries
Uses a highly idiosyncratic and technical
language to communicate intentions
Uses a different highly idiosyncratic and technical
language to communicate expectations
Source: Albrecht et al. (2004, p. 129).
Figure 1. Types of business/IT alignment (Albrecht et al., 2004,
p. 129).
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 521
In the case study, the university’s nomenclature for these phases
was
1. IT strategic vision (Demand)
2. IT strategic plan (Control)
3. Implementation (Supply)
This paper focuses on the first of these phases, the IT strategic
vision. The primary
assumption underlying this phase is that it will provide the
connection and alignment of
IT to business strategy. Consultation in this phase involved
interviewing senior executive
staff and workshop groups with senior academic and
professional staff (deans and
directors) from several stakeholder communities: teaching staff,
research staff, profes-
sional staff, IT managers and students. The results of this

12. consultation were compiled into
an IT strategic vision document that was presented to, and
ratified by, the institution’s
senior leadership.
Methodology and analysis
In order to analyse the degree of business/IT alignment,
Sharrock’s ‘four management
agendas’ framework (2012) was applied. Produced from a
thematic analysis of Australian
university strategies, this presents a higher education industry-
specific set of institutional
priorities, as shown in Table 3.
The Sharrock model has been used to help assess the degree of
alignment between the
university strategic plan and the IT strategic vision. Using these
definitions, business
priorities are categorised into one of the four ‘management
agendas’ to allow valid
comparisons to be made. In order to determine the business
priorities for IT, the strategic
plan was examined for explicit or implied mentions of IT, or
concepts related to IT
capability. The results are shown in Table 4.
The case study university’s strategic plan itself contained very
few direct refer-
ences to IT, but several indirect references were present. For
example, new forms of
student engagement could reasonably be assumed to include
new technologies to
Figure 2. Gartner IT strategic planning model (Schulte, 2015).

13. 522 A. Dent
supplement pedagogies. After duplication of items was taken
into account, the four
business priorities for IT remained. These are shown as rows in
Table 5, which
summarises the analysis. Initial analysis of the data using the
four management
agendas framework assigned each business priority to a single
management agenda.
Examination of these results gave an incomplete picture of the
agendas being
supported, as every priority clearly had impacts on other
agendas. As a result,
secondary categories were added to the analysis. Management
agendas in the sec-
ondary categories are considered to be agendas that are
supported as a consequence
of activity in the primary agenda.
Table 3. Four domains of university management.
Professional community (PC) Creative engagement (CE)
Shared aims, values and expertise; working with
high levels of commitment, trust and group
affinity
Pursuing learning, discovery and innovation;
involved in outreach and activism; and
seeking external partners to support creative
projects
System integrity (SI) Sustainable enterprise (SE)
Ensuring coherent processes to support

14. governance, planning, academic standards,
quality assurance, financial probity, efficiency
and effectiveness, and reporting
Attuned to trends in external market conditions
and government policy and funding settings;
with well-defined priorities, and an explicit
game plan to acquire and invest the resources
needed to build the capability to sustain
academic programmes
Source: Sharrock (2012).
Table 4. Case study university priorities and enabling resources.
University priorities Enabling resources
Learning and teaching New forms of student engagement
Modernisation of IT
Research Research collaboration
Engagement Modernisation of IT
Internationalisation High-quality IT
Enabling services Modern systems
High-quality IT as a tool for research, teaching and professional
operations
Table 5. Strategic plan management agendas for IT.
Priority
Primary
agenda
Secondary
agenda

15. New forms of student engagement CE PC and SE
Research collaboration tools CE PC and SE
Modernised systems and infrastructure SI SE, CE and PC
High-quality IT tools as an enabler of teaching, research and
professional operations
SE SI, CE and PC
Notes: CE, creative engagement; SE, sustainable enterprise; SI,
system integrity; PC, professional community.
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 523
New forms of student engagement
IT is an implied enabler of this priority. The main drivers of
new forms of student
engagement will have to be people and pedagogy, that is, the
professional community
(PC) agenda, where shared values across staff groups support
the student experience.
While new technology and software tools will undoubtedly play
a supporting role in new
types of student engagement, so too will other factors, such as
the physical facilities, as
learning spaces are transformed from traditional tutorial rooms
and lecture theatres to
collaborative group learning spaces. The small, implied, IT
component of this priority
consists of communication/collaboration software and fits
primarily in the creative
engagement (CE) agenda, with its focus on learning,
engagement and innovation. The

16. wider PC agenda of this priority is enabled by the CE dimension
and is thus considered a
secondary agenda for IT.
Research collaboration tools
While internationalisation is described as the key element of the
overall strategy, research
is the common theme that binds all the plan’s priorities
together. The research section of
the strategic plan focuses on collaboration amongst researchers,
particularly from other
international institutions. The implied priority for IT is to
provide the technology required
to support this collaboration. Collaboration amongst researchers
is clearly located in the
PC domain; however, the technology required to support it is
primarily part of the CE
agenda, pursuing learning, discovery and innovation, and
external collaboration. The PC
agenda is supported as a consequence of the CE agenda and thus
is classified as a
secondary agenda.
Modernised systems and infrastructure
Unlike the previous two priorities, modernised systems and
infrastructure are direct
references to almost everything that is typically considered to
be IT. There are
enough potential arguments around the semantics of what could
be considered to
constitute a ‘modern’ system or piece of infrastructure to fill
another dissertation.
For the purposes of this discussion, ‘modern’ systems and
infrastructure are assumed

17. to be systems and equipment that are supported by vendors and
have a future
product development roadmap, or those that are actively
developed and supported
in-house.
Modernised systems and infrastructure primarily support a
system integrity (SI)
agenda, keeping the technology platform current, secure and fit-
for-purpose.
High-quality IT tools as an enabler of teaching, research and
professional operations
The final strategic priority is IT as an enabler of the business
operations of the university,
an objective consistent with those identified earlier by
EDUCAUSE and CAUDIT. Where
the previous priority was concerned with establishing a stable,
modern, operating plat-
form, this priority is about providing the tools and technologies
to meet the current and
emerging business needs of every facet of the university’s
operations including its ‘back
office’ operations such as finance and human resource
management.
524 A. Dent
Management agendas supported by IT
In order to rank the agendas, a simple weighted approach was
applied. An overall total
value of 1 was given to both primary and secondary instances,

18. with 0.5 allocated to each
category. A value per instance within categories was determined
by dividing 0.5 by the
number of instances in each category. Four primary instances
meant a value of 0.125 per
instance, and 10 secondary instances meant a value of 0.05 per
instance. The decimal
values have been converted to percentages and the scores are
summed to determine the
final priority ranking. The results of the analysis of the
management agendas are presented
below. The raw count of instances is shown first, with the
percentage figure presented
afterwards in parentheses (Table 6).
The final priority order of business agendas is thus:
1. Creative engagement
2. Sustainable enterprise
3. Professional community
4. System integrity
In order to be aligned to the business requirements laid out in
the strategic plan, the IT
strategic vision should support the management agendas in the
same order.
IT strategic vision management agendas: stakeholder feedback
In the case study, the IT strategic vision was constructed from
feedback gathered in
workshops and meetings held with senior executive and
stakeholder groups representing
the business areas of the university. Workshops were delivered
in a common format,
focusing on the four questions in the demand section of the

19. Gartner model. The results of
the workshops are summarised in Table 7, with the management
agenda domain shown in
parentheses.
A final, unofficial question was asked in each of the workshops:
‘what sort of
relationship do you want to have with IT, a client/service
provider relationship, or a
business partner relationship?’ The answer to this question was
unanimously ‘business
partner’. This observation is significant as it implies close
alignment and collaboration
between business areas and IT on high-value business priorities.
An answer of ‘client/
service provider’ would have indicated the type of relationship
where IT only provided
Table 6. Mapping of primary and secondary attributes.
Professional community (PC) Creative engagement (CE)
Primary 0 (0 per cent) Primary 2 (25 per cent)
Secondary 4 (20 per cent) Secondary 2 (10 per cent)
Total score: 20 per cent Total score 35 per cent
System integrity (SI) Sustainable enterprise (SE)
Primary 1 (12.5 per cent) Primary 1 (12.5 per cent)
Secondary 1 (5 per cent) Secondary 3 (15 per cent)
Total score 17.5 per cent Total score 27.5 per cent
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 525
business areas with commodity-type services, for example,
desktop support or access
to the internet.

20. University environment and context
The first question attempted to contextualise the business
requirements of IT by situating
the university within its operating environment. As expected,
the themes identified by the
workshops represented a spread of management agendas.
The most notable omission from the themes that emerged from
this question was the
international dimension. It can be implied in ‘competition from
other universities’, but when
Table 7. IT strategic vision themes and management agendas.
Question 1: University environment and context – common
themes
● There is increasing competition from other universities as
well as TAFE and private providers
(SE)
● Educational technologies are changing the ways in which
students engage with learning (CE)
● Compliance and regulatory requirements have significant
impacts on the ability to undertake
one’s job (SI)
Question 2: ‘Business success’ – common themes
● Highest possible level of student engagement (CE)
● Good management information which is used to underpin
continuous improvement in services

21. (SE)
● Fast, reliable, integrated systems (SI)
● Documented, streamlined and automated processes (SI)
● Up-to-date website – information required by both staff and
students (SI)
● Easy-to-use search function on the website (SI)
Question 3: ‘Business capabilities’ – common themes
● Integrated systems (SI)
● 24/7 support and response capability (SI)
● Clearly mapped and understood business processes (SI)
● Collaboration tools (CE/PC)
● Mobile, self-service, interactive services for students and
staff (CE)
● Facilitate the use of ‘bring your own device’ (CE)
Question 4: IT contribution to ‘business success’ – common
themes
● Enabling technologies that ‘makes the job easier’ (SE)
● Increased hours of support, ideally 24/7 (SI)
● A learning and teaching environment that is ‘geographically
independent’ (CE)
● Technology to provide trustworthy and reliable data as
information to support decision-making
(SI)
● Learning analytics required to support student recruitment and
target ‘at risk’ students (SI)
● Better integration of systems (SI)
Source: Case study university, 2014.
526 A. Dent

22. the stated theme of the strategic plan is internationalisation, it
is reasonable to assume that an
international connection should be explicit. Research is
similarly missing-in-action; the
absence of these two areas is a common feature of the themes
identified in the workshops.
Business success
This question identified what factors (not necessarily relating to
IT) business areas need to
succeed. The themes identified by this question show a heavy
bias towards the SI agenda.
Business capabilities
Business capabilities build from the business success question.
The answers here should
be a list of the capabilities that the business believes it needs to
facilitate business success.
Once again, these are not necessarily related to IT. The themes
identified by this question
do not quite reflect this intent. For example, while clearly
mapped and understood
business processes are a (highly) desirable requirement for
business success, they are
the product of a business process analysis and design capability,
rather than the capability
itself. Similarly, integrated systems are either the output of a
systems integration capability
or the prerequisite for an enterprise-wide business intelligence
capability.
During the workshops, this question consistently required the

23. facilitator to either
repeat it or attempt to clarify it. The Gartner model is intended
to be applicable to IT
operations across all industries, yet the results of this question
clearly show that in
the case of this question it did not quite translate into a higher
education context.
IT contribution to ‘business success'
The final question sought to identify where the business sees
that IT can make a
contribution to its operations. When attempting to achieve
alignment of business and IT
strategies, this is the most important question. The themes
identified by this question were
predominantly in the sustainable enterprise (SE) and SI
domains. On a raw count of the
number of themes identified, the SE agenda is dominant;
however, ‘Learning analytics
required to support student recruitment and target “at risk”
students’ is effectively a
student-specific subset of ‘Technology to provide trustworthy
and reliable data as infor-
mation to support decision-making’, making the SE and SI
count effectively even.
Where the themes in previous questions contained obvious
omissions from the
strategic plan, themes in this question are more reflective of it.
Student engagement
(CE) and enabling technologies (SE) feature in both, indicating
at least a partial alignment
between the strategic plan and the IT strategic vision.
Overall, the themes identified in the IT strategic vision

24. workshops showed a signifi-
cant bias towards items located in the SI management agenda.
While not wholly out of
step with the IT priorities from the strategic plan, which
contained a very broad SI
component on modernising systems and infrastructure, the bias
towards the SI agenda
for IT indicates a lack of alignment between the two strategies.
Analysing the strategic misalignment
Question 4 (IT contribution to ‘business success’) is the key
question when examining this
misalignment. Using the same framework used to analyse IT in
the strategic plan, the
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 527
themes identified by question 4 have been categorised with both
primary and secondary
management agendas. The results are presented in Table 8.
Enabling technologies that make the job easier
This theme is a direct analogue of the strategic plan priority;
‘high-quality IT tools
as an enabler of teaching, research and professional operations’.
Primarily based in
the SE management agenda, enabling tools and technologies
that increase the
efficiency of business area operations will free up resources,
making them available
for other value-adding activities. Having such a broad primary
agenda, this theme

25. will consequentially support all the other management agendas.
Increased hours of support, ideally 24/7
This theme is very firmly based in the SI management agenda,
supporting system access,
accuracy and security. Equally important in this theme is the
support of the people side of
the equation, providing expert assistance and advice for
business areas in the use of the
systems. By primarily supporting the SI agenda, this item
services all other agendas in a
secondary capacity.
Learning and teaching environment that is geographically
independent
Geographically independent learning and teaching environments
are a subset of the ‘new
forms of student engagement’ strategic plan priority. High-
quality, geographically inde-
pendent, online learning environments are part of the CE
management agenda, providing
the toolset on which new learning materials, optimised for
online delivery, can be built.
The PC and SE agendas are secondarily served by this theme.
Providing the tools that
support the further development of a PC of scholars and
students helps maintain the
relevance and viability of the institution.
Table 8. Analysis of question 4: IT contribution to ‘business
success’.
Workshop theme
Primary

26. agenda
Secondary
agenda
Enabling technologies that ‘makes the job easier’ SE SI, CE and
PC
Increased hours of support, ideally 24/7 SI SE, CE and PC
A learning and teaching environment that is ‘geographically
independent’
CE PC and SE
Technology to provide trustworthy and reliable data as
information
to support decision-making
SI SE
Learning analytics required to support student recruitment and
target
‘at risk’ students
SI SE
Better integration of systems SI SE, CE and PC
528 A. Dent
Technology to provide trustworthy and reliable data as
information to support
decision-making
The technology and reporting capability to support management

27. decision-making is
located in the SI management agenda. The technology
presentation layer will be the
most visible aspect of this theme to the business, whether it be
via simple tabular reports
in spread sheets or advanced data visualisations. However, the
majority of the work
required to deliver this capability actually lies in integrating the
underlying systems and
defining common definitions of the data to report on. This
theme is tightly tied to the SE
secondary agenda, which uses the reporting information output
of this theme as its key
input.
Learning analytics required to support student recruitment and
target ‘at risk’ students
This theme is a student-specific subset of the previous theme
and has been classified in the
same way.
Better integration of systems
The final IT strategic vision workshop theme also supports the
SI management agenda. As
noted in the previous two themes, it is a foundation requirement
for good management
reporting. Being broader than the previous two themes,
however, this theme provides
secondary support for all the other management agendas. While
reliable management
information underpins SE decision-making, better systems
integration also supports the
PC and CE agendas by bringing disparate systems together and
allowing their information

28. to be used in new and different ways to connect staff, students
and the community.
Management agendas supported by themes identified in the IT
strategic planning
workshops
In order to make a valid comparison, the same weighting regime
used in the strategic plan
analysis above was applied; the results are presented in Table 9.
Final comparison of agendas
The final results of the comparison between the management
agendas defined in the
strategic plan and those identified in the IT strategic vision
workshops are given in
Table 10.
Table 9. Summary of IT strategic plan themes.
Professional community (PC) Creative engagement (CE)
Primary 0 (0 per cent) Primary 1 (8 per cent)
Secondary 4 (15 per cent) Secondary 3 (12 per cent)
Total score: 15 per cent Total score 20 per cent
System integrity (SI) Sustainable enterprise (SE)
Primary 4 (33 per cent) Primary 1 (8 per cent)
Secondary 1 (4 per cent) Secondary 5 (20 per cent)
Total score 37 per cent Total score 28 per cent
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 529
The most striking difference between the two is the relative
position of the SI agenda.

29. While SI was the least important agenda item for the strategic
plan, participants in the IT
strategic planning workshops identified it as their number one
agenda and relegated the
strategic plan’s top agenda for IT, CE, to third place, at less
than half the value previously
assigned to it. The results were not completely dissonant,
however; both exercises rated
the SE agenda second, giving it almost exactly the same
weighted score.
This emphasis on the SI agenda clearly stood out. While the
answer to the final,
unofficial, workshop question on the type of relationship
business areas wanted with IT
was always ‘business partner’, the focus of the answers given
throughout the workshop
had all felt heavily biased towards the type of commodity
services that typify the lowest
end of the SI agenda, desktop support, printing and bigger staff
email inboxes for
example. The ranking of SI as the top agenda supports this
observation.
Creation of the IT strategic vision
The final steps in the methodology were the creation of the IT
strategic vision and its
approval by the case study university’s senior executive group.
The analysis of the results,
however, shows a misalignment of the priorities in the strategic
plan and IT strategic
vision. The question this raises is, what (if anything) went
wrong with the process that
was supposed to provide business and IT alignment?

30. Findings on the process of alignment
In the development of the IT strategic vision, alignment with
the university’s business
objectives was intended to occur as a result of a number of key
factors in the creation
process:
1. Use of the Gartner IT strategic planning framework
2. Wide and representative stakeholder engagement
3. A senior executive check point at the end of each phase
Each of these elements was present in the IT strategic vision
creation process, and yet the
analysis of management agendas shows that the end result was
not fully aligned: the result
of the workshops gave top priority to a different management
agenda than the strategic
plan. The question is why?
Table 10. Final comparison of agendas.
Agendas
University strategic
plan (per cent)
IT strategic vision
workshops (per cent)
Creative engagement 35 20
Sustainable enterprise 27.5 28
Professional community 20 15
System integrity 17.5 37
530 A. Dent

31. IT strategic planning framework
The Gartner IT strategic planning framework is a generic
framework designed to be
applied to many industries. Using it in a higher education
institution is no more or less
valid than using it in a retail, mining or professional services
organisation. The
practical experience of the workshops revealed that there was a
level of disconnect
between the intent of, and responses to, some of the questions.
This can be attributed
to a level of confusion over the terminology, particularly around
the capabilities
question (question 3). Ultimately, however, the results of that
question were still
consistent with the results of the entire workshop.
The only gap in framework in the case study context is its over-
reliance on the senior
executive ‘checkpoint’ to assure alignment. In this case, it
would have been useful had the
model also included a method with which to quantify alignment.
Stakeholder engagement
The assumption that engaging with a wide range of senior
stakeholders from every level
of the business would result in an IT strategic vision aligned
with the business strategy
was the foundation of the planning process. The stakeholders
contributing to the IT
strategic vision workshops were all senior staff. As such they
could reasonably be

32. expected to be aligning their business requirements with those
of the strategic plan and
yet this did not seem to fully happen.
The difference between the business agendas identified in the
strategic plan and the IT
strategic vision workshops can also be explained in part by
timing. The strategic plan was
constructed and released in 2012. Over the two years between
the release of strategic plan
and the IT strategic vision workshops, the university undertook
a number of other
significant business initiatives, including
● a curriculum review and implementation of new degree
structures;
● creation of a research strategy;
● restructure of the Academy, halving the number of schools;
● recruitment of all new school deans;
● review of transnational offerings;
● restructure of professional services, halving the number of
directorates.
As well as these major changes, some others that are significant
to the strategic
business/IT alignment did not occur, most notably the creation
of strategies to
support two core priorities of the strategic plan, in Teaching &
Learning and in
Engagement.
Rather than representing a misalignment between business and
IT strategies, the
results of the workshop show IT aligning with an evolving
business strategy. In describing
the Learning School of strategy, Mintzberg et al. note that

33. strategies ‘emerge as people . . .
come to learn about a situation as well as their organization's
capability of dealing with it’
(Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 1998, p. 176). As a result of
the implementation of the
strategic plan, the major initiatives listed above were
undertaken at what can only be
described as breakneck speed for a university.
All the major areas of institutional operations, both academic
and professional,
have been affected by these changes, with most areas being
impacted by multiple
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 531
simultaneous initiatives. The results of such an ambitious
programme conducted over
such optimistic timeframes inevitably include a period of lag as
policies, procedures
and systems catch up to changing business processes and
requirements. In this type of
environment, the SI management agenda is clearly needed.
While the core of the
strategic plan remains the same, the results of the IT strategic
vision workshops are
reflective of an evolution of the business strategy as it adapts to
the implementation of
the overall strategic plan. The workshops provided the vehicle
to identify changing
strategic business needs and translate them into a series of
management priority
agendas for IT that differed from the original university
strategic plan, but were still

34. ultimately supportive of it.
Senior executive ‘checkpoint’
The Gartner model makes allowances for a potential
misalignment between the business
strategy in the form of a senior executive ‘checkpoint’ on
completion of the first stage. In
the absence of an alignment analysis framework, any
determination on the alignment of
the IT strategic vision with the university’s strategic plan was a
subjective judgement. The
process of creating the vision did not include any formal
measures of alignment or any
framework for comparing them. Had a structured analysis been
performed, it would have
highlighted the discrepancy between the results of the IT
strategic vision workshops and
the strategic plan identified above.
Ultimately the identification of an apparent misalignment
between business and
IT strategies does not have to make any difference to the overall
IT strategy. The
senior executive accepted the IT strategic vision despite the
apparent misalignment
of the results of the workshops with the strategic plan. It does,
however, encourage
an extra level of investigation into the reasons for the
difference, which will, if
nothing else, result in a better understanding of the business
needs the IT strategy is
attempting to align to, and the IT capability that may inform
‘emergent’ strategic
options.

35. Conclusion
The objective of this paper was to examine the process of
attempting to align a university
IT strategy with the institution’s business strategy, using one
university’s experience as a
case study. The process the university followed to produce an
IT strategy aligned with the
needs of the business can ultimately be considered successful,
despite producing an IT
strategic vision based on a different set of management agendas
from those set out in the
strategic plan. Starting from a position where the strategic plan
primarily supported a CE
agenda, the process of gathering requirements through
workshops revealed that what the
business areas actually required was in the SI agenda. This
change in management
agendas was the result of an ‘emergent’ evolution of the
business strategy, where order
and control is now required after a series of institution-wide
initiatives changing many of
the fundamental operating parameters.
The process could be improved with the addition of an explicit
framework or more
sophisticated way to measure business/IT alignment. This would
provide a solid, quantifi-
able measure that could be used as a cross-check before taking
the completed IT strategic
vision to the senior executive group. If, as in this case study,
workshops produce a
contrasting view of priorities, these can either be re-examined
or explained before
532 A. Dent

36. presenting the final output. Either scenario will result in a
better understanding of IT
capabilities and their potentially closer alignment with business
needs.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/University_of_the_
future/$FILE/University_of_the_future_2012.pdf
http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/University_of_the_
future/$FILE/University_of_the_future_2012.pdf
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/249542
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http://www.gartner.com/document/2985119
http://www.gartner.com/document/2985119
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2012.678728
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AbstractIntroduction: technology in higher educationThe
business/IT alignment imperativeThe case studyMethodology
and analysisNew forms of student engagementResearch
collaboration toolsModernised systems and infrastructureHigh-
quality IT tools as an enabler of teaching, research and
professional operationsManagement agendas supported by ITIT
strategic vision management agendas: stakeholder
feedbackUniversity environment and contextBusiness
successBusiness capabilitiesIT contribution to ‘business
success'Analysing the strategic misalignmentEnabling
technologies that make the job easierIncreased hours of support,
ideally 24/7Learning and teaching environment that is
geographically independentTechnology to provide trustworthy
and reliable data as information to support decision-
makingLearning analytics required to support student
recruitment and target ‘at risk’ studentsBetter integration of
systemsManagement agendas supported by themes identified in

39. the IT strategic planning workshopsFinal comparison of
agendasCreation of the IT strategic visionFindings on the
process of alignmentIT strategic planning
frameworkStakeholder engagementSenior executive
‘checkpoint’ConclusionDisclosure statementReferences
Managing and Using Information Systems:
A Strategic Approach – Sixth Edition
Keri Pearlson, Carol Saunders,
and Dennis Galletta
© Copyright 2016
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Chapter 1
The Information Systems Strategy Triangle
2
Kaiser Permanente (KP) Opening Case
What was KP’s business strategy in 2015?
On what were bonuses to doctors based under the “fix me”

40. system?
What would the new idea be called instead of a “fix me”
system?
What is the new basis for end-of-year bonuses?
What goal alignment has helped KP’s success?
What IS components are part of this?
Could only the IS components be changed to achieve their
success?
Could only the strategy be changed to achieve their success?
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
3
To promote better health care at lower cost
Billings
Proactive health system
Improved health of patients
Alignment between business strategy, organizational design,
and information systems strategy
Fast communication with patients outside of face-to-face
appointments; automatic email reminders to patients for
exercise or medications
No, the business strategy must be aligned with the IS, in
addition to incentives
No, without the new incentives and new IS, employees would
not wish to cooperate, nor would they be able to do so.
3
4
The Information Systems Strategy Triangle
These need to be balanced.

41. Business Strategy
Organizational Strategy
Information Strategy
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4
What is a “Strategy?”
Coordinated set of actions to fulfill objectives, purposes, or
goals
It sets limits on what the organization seeks to accomplish
Starts with a missionCompanyMission StatementZappos To
provide the best customer service possible. Internally we call
this our WOW philosophy.Amazon We seek to be Earth’s most
customer-centric company for three primary customer sets:
consumer customers, seller customers and developer
customers.L.L. Bean Sell good merchandise at a reasonable
profit, treat your customers like human beings and they will
always come back for more.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
5
Business Strategy

42. 6
What is a business strategy?
It is where a business seeks to go and how it expects to get
there
It is not a business model, although it includes business models
as one component of a business strategy
Business models include subscriptions, advertising, licenses,
etc.
Business models do not include where the business seeks to go,
and only the revenue portion of how it expects to get there
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
7
Generic Strategies Framework
Michael Porter: How businesses can build a competitive
advantage
Three primary strategies for achieving competitive advantage:
Cost leadership – lowest-cost producer.
Differentiation – product is unique.
Focus – limited scope – can accomplish this via cost leadership
or differentiation within the segment
8
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

43. 8
Three Strategies for Achieving Competitive AdvantageStrategic
AdvantageStrategic TargetUniqueness Perceived by
CustomerLow Cost PositionIndustry WideDifferentiationCost
LeadershipParticular Segment OnlyFocus
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
9
Three Strategies for Achieving
Competitive Advantage
ExamplesStrategic AdvantageStrategic TargetUniqueness
Perceived by CustomerLow Cost PositionIndustry
WideDifferentiationCost LeadershipParticular Segment
OnlyFocus
Apple
Wal-Mart
Marriott
Ritz Carlton
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
10

44. Dynamic Strategies
Beware of Hypercompetition
Can lead to a “red ocean” environment
Cutthroat competition – zero sum game
Every advantage is eroded—becoming a cost.
Sustaining an advantage can be a deadly distraction from
creating new ones.
D’Avenis says: Goal of advantage should be disruption, not
sustainability
Initiatives are achieved through series of small steps. Get new
advantage before old one erodes.
Better to adopt a “blue ocean” strategy
Change the industry; create new segments/products
11
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
11
Creative Destruction
GE’s Approach under Jack Welch
Ask people to imagine how to destroy and grow your business
DYB: Imagine how competitors would want to destroy your
business.
GYB: Counteract that by growing the business in some way to:
Reach new customers/markets
Better serve existing customers
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

45. 12
SummaryStrategic ApproachKey IdeaApplication to Information
SystemsPorter’s generic strategiesFirms achieve competitive
advantage through cost leadership, differentiation, or
focus.Understanding which strategy is chosen by a firm is
critical to choosing IS to complement the strategy.Dynamic
environment strategiesSpeed, agility, and aggressive moves and
countermoves by a firm create competitive advantage.The speed
of change is too fast for manual response making IS critical to
achieving business goals.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
13
Organizational Strategy
14
Organizational Strategy

46. What is organizational strategy?
Organizational design and
Choices about work processes
How do you manage organizational, control, and cultural
variables?
Managerial Levers
15
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
15
16
Managerial Levers
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
16
Information Systems Strategy

47. 17
IS Strategy
What is an IS Strategy?
- The plan an organization uses in providing information
services.
Four key IS infrastructure components
18
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
18
19
Information systems strategy
matrix.WhatWhoWhereHardwareThe physical devices of the
systemSystem users and managersPhysical location of devices
(cloud, datacenter, etc.)SoftwareThe programs, applications,
and utilities System users and managersThe hardware it resides
on and physical location of that hardwareNetworkingThe way
hardware is connected to other hardware, to the Internet and to
other outside networks.System users and managers; company
that provides the serviceWhere the nodes, wires, and other
transport media areDataBits of information stored in the
systemOwners of data; data administratorsWhere the
information resides
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Click to edit Master text styles

48. Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
19
WhatWhoWhereHardwareLaptops, servers to store info and
back up laptopsConsultants have laptops, managed by the IS
Dept.Laptops are mobile; servers are centralizedSoftwareOffice
suite; collaboration toolsSoftware is on consultants’ laptops but
managed centrallyMuch resides on laptops; some only resides
on serversNetworkingInternet; hard wired connections in office;
remote lines from home, satellite, or client officesISP offers
service; Internal IS group provides servers and accessGlobal
access is needed; Nodes are managed by ISPsDataWork done for
clients; personnel dataData owned by firm but made available to
consultants as neededResides on cloud and copies “pulled” into
laptops as needed.
20
Illustration in a Consulting Firm
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level

49. 20
One IS Strategy: Social Strategy
Collaboration
Extend the reach of stakeholders to find and connect with one-
another
Engagement
Involve stakeholders in the business via blogs; communities
Innovation
Identify, describe, prioritize new ideas
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
21
Managing and Using Information Systems:
A Strategic Approach – Sixth Edition
Keri Pearlson, Carol Saunders,
and Dennis Galletta
© Copyright 2016
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.