Explain what is strategic management
Strategic management aims to achieve strategic alignment between business and IT
For an enterprise to achieve its aims efficiently and effectively, corporate and IT gov must be in place, and business and IT alignment must be in place
What is the Strategic alignment model
It recognizes the need to consider both external and internal domain
External domain refers to issues that deal with external aspect of enterprise
Internal refers to areas such as key biz processes, policies guidelines and procedures.
Corss alignment reflect how both IT and Biz domains interact with one another
Strategic planning process
Process where business strategy is defined, from which IT strategy is developed and takes into acount external and internal factors
COBIT goals cascade helps translate stakeholder needs to enterprise, alignment goals, governance and management objectives then into IT goals.
In COBIT goals cascade effective identification of IT goals from stakeholder needs enhances IT gov. IT goals are also linked to stakeholder drivers and needs which is their source. This ensures that IT goals are tightly linked with company goals and objectives
COBIT goals cascade steps
- stakeholder drivers influence stakeholder needs
- Stakeholder needs cascade into enterprise goals as they can be related to a set of generic enterprise goals
- Enterprise goals cascade to aliognment goals. From the identified enterprise goals, COBIt defines various alignment goals to each of the enterprise goals
- Alignment goals cascade to governance and management objectives - specific goals are defined in governance and management objectives
value of goals cascade
Allows definition of enterprise IT governance based on objectives of the enterprise and related risk
Essential step as it
1. Defines relevant and tangible goals and objectives at various levels of responsibility
- FIlters knowledge in cobit to provide relevant guidance for projects
- clearly identifies and communicates how governance and management objectives are important to achieve enterprise goals
What causes Changes in business strategy
Constant changes to business strategy due to dynamic nature of business
IT needs to continually readjust to align with business. If not done can lead to misalignment of IT and biz obj, resulting in systematic failures in governance. Also IT may offer new opportunities which can have an impact on biz strategy, hence it is a 2 way relationship.
What is agility
Refers Enterprise’s Ability to adapt quickly to changes in environment. It is an ongoing process.
Agility requires enterprise to constantly assess strategic business changes and their impact on IT env
What are agility loops and their 3 loops
They represent the principles that are needed for IT org to be agile
- Monitoring and deciding
Encompasses environmental monitoring and responsive decision making. Often, the most profitable
opportunities for better alignment of IT and business often arise from agile responses to new or
unexpected events. - Improving existing processes
Focus on improving existing operations, often through automation and enhancement of reliability. In
some instances, improving existing processes is insufficient and new processes need to be created - Creating new processes
Focus on creating new operations to deliver effectiveness. Through this process, the IT organization
sense changes and respond efficiently and effectively through creation of new processes and retiring
old obsolete ones.
Loop 2 and 3 inputs are non-standard
Policies and procedures
Necessary in supporting buisiness and IT alignment, reflect management guidance, and are tools strategic management uses to provide guidance and direction
3 Barriers to strategic alignment
Expression barriers
Inability by senior management in communicating business strategy to operational
management.
Specification Barriers
Lack of IT involvement in strategy development, resulting in IT and business
having 2 different strategies.
Implementation Barriers
Difficulties in implementing the strategy due to current IT portfolio. E.g.,
legacy systems
Importance of communication in strategic management
Continuous communciation to IT personnel business and IT objectives is important to not lose sign of business strategy
CIO is important in this as he need to explain IT strategy to IT personnel and make them support it
When business goals change he also need to ensure new IT strategy evolved
