Determine the strategic business goals, Using a company of your choice. Develop
ID: 3875587 • Letter: D
Question
Determine the strategic business goals, Using a company of your choice. Develop an IT strategy that aligns to the business goals. You can use the balanced scorecard approach or you can develop your own method for defining and aligning the IT strategy to the business strategy. You will need to cite at least two credible sources that will provide justification for your strategy or approach.
Finding a company: If you are employed, it is best for you to use your current place of employment so you can practically apply the concepts in this assignment. Alternatively, you can use a nonprofit organization or any other organization you may have ties or access to.
Your IT strategy should include:
Business Goals and Objectives
List at least two or three specific business goals for the next year or two with an explanation of the business’ rationale for the goal.
List an objective for each business goal to explain what the company needs to do to achieve the goal.
IT Strategies aligned with business goals and objectivesList one or two IT strategies for each business goal
These should be recommended strategies that would enable the business goals and objectives to be achieved.
If your company already has IT strategies, you may provide an analysis and justification or new recommendation for each of the strategies
Organizational StructureDescribe the structure of the organization including:
Organizational design
Organizational culture
Leadership factors (the types of leadership displayed within the company)
Business processes
Physical layout (i.e., how many offices, virtual offices, international locations)
IT InfrastructureDescribe the current IT infrastructure including:
Hardware
Software
Network
IT resources
This should be a high-level overview
IT Challenges
Describe internal and external challenges IT faces in meeting the business needs
Include social and/or ethical considerations
Risks
Describe risks IT might face when implementing change
As you develop your strategy, you may want to consider the following:
An effective IT strategy will enable the business operations, helping business leaders achieve business goals more efficiently and effectively.
Focus on top priorities. Take the time to understand organizational issues, how they are related, and how they affect performance. Determine what will happen if nothing changes and where IT can have the greatest, positive impact.
Identify how IT supports business processes. The business is relying on their capabilities to achieve the business goals. The IT strategy should include a plan for supporting those business capabilities, creating efficiencies, and competitive advantage for the business.
Define IT priorities and governance for IT. Without priorities and a process for IT governance in place, progress will be slowed. An agreed upon plan for governing IT will enable the decision process.
Understand the challenges. Improving processes and increasing efficiencies through IT implementation also requires behavioral and sometimes organizational change. With these changes come inherent challenges. Understanding and planning for those challenges will increase the chance of success in meeting the business goals.
Write an 8–12-page paper in Word format. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.
By the due date assigned, deliver your assignment to the Submissions Area.
Criteria
Listed specific business goals (minimum 2–3) for the next year or two.
For each goal:
Explained the rationale of the goal.
Provided one objective.
Explained what the company needed to do to achieve that goal.
Explained how the IT strategies will provide a competitive advantage for the business.
Aligned the IT strategies with business goals and objectives and provided a justification of how those strategies support business goals.
Described the structure of the organization including:
Organizational design
Organizational culture
Leadership factors
Business processes
Physical layout
Described the current IT infrastructure. This should include hardware, software, network, and IT resources.
Described internal and external challenges IT faces in meeting the business needs.
Described risks IT might face when implementing change, including any ethical and/or social issues brought about by the implementation of the new system.
Ensured academic writing, such as grammar, spelling, and attribution of sources, appropriate.
Criteria
Listed specific business goals (minimum 2–3) for the next year or two.
For each goal:
Explained the rationale of the goal.
Provided one objective.
Explained what the company needed to do to achieve that goal.
Explained how the IT strategies will provide a competitive advantage for the business.
Aligned the IT strategies with business goals and objectives and provided a justification of how those strategies support business goals.
Described the structure of the organization including:
Organizational design
Organizational culture
Leadership factors
Business processes
Physical layout
Described the current IT infrastructure. This should include hardware, software, network, and IT resources.
Described internal and external challenges IT faces in meeting the business needs.
Described risks IT might face when implementing change, including any ethical and/or social issues brought about by the implementation of the new system.
Ensured academic writing, such as grammar, spelling, and attribution of sources, appropriate.
Explanation / Answer
When both innovation and business objectives are equally valued, broadly promoted and fully communicated, a culture naturally exists that fosters alignment of the two. In this culture, top-down business objectives are communicated throughout the organization so that all levels are focused on addressing the corporation’s short- and long-term goals. It then becomes the innovators’ responsibility to align their activities in support of the corporate goals.
There are several ways to naturally bring these two camps together. Jointly developing technology/product and business roadmaps encourages discussion and debate, forging linkages that guide actions. Internal business and technology fairs highlight near term successes while raising visibility to long-term opportunities.
– Marc Chason, Motorola Labs
I practice the art of alignment, executed by a balanced scorecard approach. At Gene Express Inc., our strategy map shows us that the impact of aligning our objectives creates more than a ten-fold greater than working in silos. We have objectives related to creating product enhancements, intellectual property and continuously improving our operations. These are our innovation areas. On our strategy map and scorecard, it is clear how these feed into our financial goals. We have measures and targets in both these areas.
– Jonathan Rowe, Gene Express, Inc.
– Ron Jonash, The Monitor Group
Fundamentally, innovation should be an integral part of business objectives. It’s hard to find (or imagine) a business without growth cooked into the future strategy. Except for rare cases, that growth will need to be fueled by innovation. Some will go the route of acquisitions to achieve the growth, but innovation – be it brand renovation, evolution, or revolution – will largely be required to meet the growth gap desired by stakeholders. Regarding alignment, companies should stay true to the promise of what they are delivering to their customers or consumers…and keeping true will likely require innovation of their products or services to stay in line with the future needs and desires of the target.
– Troy Geesaman, Laga
As with all things in business, if you can’t answer the question, “How does this align with my business objectives?” don’t do it!
Everything in business can ultimately be boiled down to “finding a solution to a problem.” In fact, there’s nothing we do that can’t be rephrased that way. Without a customer with a problem to be solved, we wouldn’t even be in business. But not every problem should be solved with an innovation. By taking a portfolio approach to business, we identify those problems for which we already have solutions, those that require improvement in an existing solution, and those that require whole new, differentiating solutions. That’s where we need to focus our innovation efforts.
– David Silverstein, Breakthrough Management Group
Today in this global marketplace, only governments and religious institutions somehow seem to survive without encouraging and supporting innovation and creativity. You have no choice.
– Norman Bodek, PCS Inc.
Our Analysis
It should be a relief to our readers that our panelists offer very practical and proven tools to align the organization with the business objectives, innovation and the specific activities through product/technology roadmaps linked to business roadmaps as used by Motorola and the Balanced Score Card as used by companies like Gene Express.
The bigger challenge is what Marc Chason and David Silverstien mention: that there has to be an articulated business reason for innovation. In essence, what they are saying is to give innovation a business purpose, whether it is closing an emerging growth gap that cannot be closed by the current strategy or by acquisitions, or a specific problem that requires entirely new and differentiated solutions. Don’t ever forget that innovation is a means to an end.
– Chuck Frey/Hitendra Patel
2. How do you get senior management commitment to both short- and long-term funding of innovation initiatives?
Senior management must be able to buy into the project with the understanding that the investment in money, time and resources will lead to an impact greater than other proposals that are vying for the same resources. The innovator should be able to demonstrate to a reasonable confidence level that the corporate investment will deliver specific goals within finite time frames. To foster an innovation culture, senior management needs to expeditiously commit to the project or pass on it.
– Marc Chason, Motorola Labs
While there is no guaranteed approach to getting senior management to commit to funding innovation initiatives, there are ways to improve the chances. Many times I have seen employees become frustrated with management because the employee has a great idea but the idea doesn’t get traction. Most of these times it was due to the idea not being presented as a business plan. Imagine your leadership is a venture capital group and you are going for funding. Put your plan together and practice it with trusted colleagues. I suggest this because it doesn’t get any easier outside your company unless you have a bundle of cash sitting around. If you take this approach, at least you might have something to work with when you throw your hands up in the air and decide to start your own company.
– Jonathan Rowe, Gene Express, Inc.
The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” is never truer spoken when it comes to enabling senior management grasping the opportunity about to be seized – or missed – through innovation. Visualize the opportunity wherever possible to show how the innovation concept can be made real. Sure, a little “flash” helps when it comes to capture initial attention and to convey passion, but since you’re likely operating in the fuzzy front end, you can’t be devoid of the facts that most boardrooms require to release the floodgates of funding. Grab their attention with the visualization, substantiate with facts or best-informed estimates, and then hook them with a clear plan to show an accelerated plan for commercialization. Nothing warms the heart of a CEO and his leadership team like an idea that will yield a solid return on investment in the near-team future.
– Troy Geesaman, Laga
Sell, sell, sell. The reality is that with the exception of some founders, who are more entrepreneur than manager, few innovations come from the top. Selling from the bottom up is critical — but that’s for ideas. When it comes to “initiatives,” it is highly unlikely that you will successfully convince a management team of the need for innovation if they haven’t seen it themselves; but you have to try or throw in the towel.
Your willingness and eagerness to accept change is, for the most part, genetically coded into you. “Change management” helps you deal with change, but it doesn’t make a leader more likely to see the need for it in the first place. So you have to really sell — hard sell — the business case for why an organization needs to fund your innovation initiative. I think one of the best ways to do that is to do a scenario analysis that diverges from the most common approach, which is to show the potential benefits of something. Instead you have to model what happens if you don’t do something. You have to be willing to talk about how ugly the baby is and you have to be willing to take the risk of being unpopular. If you’re selling to the leaders of a business, you’re probably putting your job on the line. But that’s what it’s going to take.
– David Silverstein, Breakthrough Management Group
– Ron Jonash, The Monitor Group
Robotics was invented in the United States but very few American companies adapted the technology while virtually every Japanese company did. They not only used the technology, but over one hundred Japanese companies now make their own robots. They saw the long term need to compete with the Chinese and other Asian companies. They could not compete on labor costs. Sadly, we think that we can survive by emptying out our factories and letting Asia make our products for us. Last September, I visited a Panasonic plant in Kobe, Japan and saw banks of automatic insertion machines producing circuit boards with almost no labor. Japanese management realizes that only through innovation and creativity can they continue to compete.
Our Analysis
It should be a relief to our readers that our panelists offer very practical and proven tools to align the organization with the business objectives, innovation and the specific activities through product/technology roadmaps linked to business roadmaps as used by Motorola and the Balanced Score Card as used by companies like Gene Express.
The bigger challenge is what Marc Chason and David Silverstien mention: that there has to be an articulated business reason for innovation. In essence, what they are saying is to give innovation a business purpose, whether it is closing an emerging growth gap that cannot be closed by the current strategy or by acquisitions, or a specific problem that requires entirely new and differentiated solutions. Don’t ever forget that innovation is a means to an end.
– Chuck Frey/Hitendra Patel
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