Strategic Alignment of Organizational Strategies

Abstract

Alignment is important to all organizations. This is confirmed by King (1995) but it is not yet clear how to achieve harmony between business strategy, information technology (IT) and e-commerce and what the impact of this alignment would be on an organization. In the past, the IT department was responsible for planning, development and management of information systems (IS). With the convergence of e-commerce, gaining an understanding of how e-commerce and IT may be jointly employed to support organizational strategies is important for managers (it is acknowledged that some organizations place e-commerce in the IT department, while others have it as a separate department). Good practice will ensure that the organization will find the best place for it. It is, however, good policy to split e-commerce and IT staff while aligning strategies. It is necessary to align the strategy for the e-commerce department as well. This alignment could be either “lawful” (wishes to create and protect) or chaotic (wishes to destroy).