ISYS90038 Chap.3 Delivering Business Value through IT Strategy
Delivering Business Value through IT Strategy
Week 3 argues that business strategy and IT strategy should be one conversation rather than two plans written in sequence. When the business sets strategy first and asks IT to support it, IT cannot fully grasp the strategy and the business underestimates what IT could do. The module's alternative is integration, IT agility and IT investment that complements the business rather than following it.
The chief information officer sits at the centre of this problem: EY's survey identifies six CIO responsibilities, two operational and four strategic, and finds that CIOs who want to be partners are still held in the operational band, seen as watchdogs and left out of early strategy discussions.
The textbook's four critical success factors, revisiting the business model, having strategic themes, involving the right people and working in partnership, are each necessary and none sufficient. Five dimensions of IT strategy initiatives, from business improvement to infrastructure, have to be balanced, and keeping the lights on can take as much as 70 per cent of IT spending.
The chapter finishes with the practices that make a strategy process responsive, such as rolling budgets and relationship managers, and a worked case that ranks which success factor failed first.
What this chapter covers
- 01
From sequenced to integrated strategy: limited IT input and business blind spots
- 02
The CIO's six responsibilities: two operational, four strategic, and the gap between them
- 03
Four critical success factors, each necessary and none sufficient on its own
- 04
Business model versus business strategy: how value is created versus what will be done
- 05
Five dimensions of IT strategy initiatives and the risk of an unbalanced portfolio
- 06
Keeping the lights on, outsourcing routes and the concerns they raise
- 07
Responsive strategy processes: rolling cycles, architecture, funding buckets and relationship managers
Worked example · free
Rank the success factors that failed in a retail project
- 1Name the factors in play: partnership, right people, and strategic themes that are tracked and governed.
- 1Partnership: emailing a finished design for comment (P2, L7–9) is one of the habits the module says is not partnership.
- 1Right people: store managers, who know how customers shop, were not involved (P3, L1).
- 1Rank: partnership failed first; untracked outcomes (P4, L6) follow from it, so fixing metrics alone would not deliver value.
Key terms
- Business model
- How the parts of an organisation interconnect to create value; the module says it precedes strategy.
- Strategic themes
- Interrelated, adaptable programs that are tracked and governed, through which strategy is carried out.
- Relationship manager
- A role that acts as a two-way conduit between IT and a part of the business, finding needs and synergies.
- Keeping the lights on
- Maintaining applications, fixing problems, mandatory changes and keeping services available, which can absorb up to 70 per cent of an IT budget.
- Business improvement
- Low-risk IT initiatives with short to medium payback, such as process re-engineering and cost reduction.
- Rolling planning cycle
- Planning and budgeting updated more than once a year so that IT strategy keeps pace with the business.
Delivering Business Value through IT Strategy FAQ
Why are CIOs often excluded from strategy?
The survey traces it to backgrounds and career paths that run through IT rather than the business, and to a culture that sees the CIO as a watchdog who raises risks. As a result strategy is often finalised before IT has any input.
What counts as partnership with the business?
Continuous synchronisation at every level of planning. The module rules out consulting the CIO after planning, emailing a finished strategy for comment, or presenting the strategy to IT for feedback.
How should an IT portfolio be balanced?
Across five dimensions, from business improvement and enabling projects to experiments, opportunity leverage and infrastructure. Over-weighting low-risk improvement work looks prudent but erodes the ability to create new value.
Why does annual IT planning fall behind?
Competitors, technology, customer expectations and regulation change faster than a yearly cycle can respond. Rolling planning, enterprise architecture, separate funding buckets and relationship managers help strategy keep pace.
Exam move
Build a one-page sheet with three lists: the six CIO responsibilities split into two bands, the four critical success factors with one sign of failure for each, and the five dimensions with their risk profile. Then practise classifying: take any project described in a case and name its dimension, and take any planning description and decide whether it shows partnership or consultation after the fact.
Remember that the module uses two sets of labels for the five dimensions, so learn the meaning behind each label rather than one wording.
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