Avoiding the Alignment Trap in Intormation Technology Essay

An alarming pattern has surfaced in that more(prenominal) companies atomic number 18 concentrating on alignment and ar finding that their perpetrateance is every declining or moving sideways. Companies ar focusing on the wrong solutions with compliancy to their Information Technology problems, resulting in severe bottlenecks to growth. Companies need to learn how to fatigue out of the trap and build IT organizations that allow for growth rather than bar it. Companies result need to be committed as doing so will require a continuous effort.The essential goal for these companies in effect to succeed is to bleed IT into the upper-right quarter-circle, where they will be passing effective and extremely aligned, and where IT appears to be enabling growth rather than inhibiting it. In order to move in this direction, it is my recommendation that the companies begin by installing local range networks locally, as well as a central database stored on a server to connect to hea d office. This option is economically feasible, will correct local efficiencies and will allow the sharing of resources and records. I would also recommend that the companies begin feasibility testing to explore the implementation of an internal ERP schema to support global operations in the near future. Doing this will serve up companies to prolong up with the competition.Current SituationCompanies are getting caught in an alignment trap whereas they are shake offing large amounts of resources towards being highly aligned and not realizing the importance of being highly effective as well.There are cardinal quadrants within which companies are being categorize with respect to their ability to be effective. They are being prised ground on the in say-so as far as completing projects on clock and on budget, and the ineffectiveness of alignment to an important trading objective.The head start of these quadrants is alignment trap. Despite being highly aligned, the companies w ithin this pigeonholing are little effective in completing budgets on condemnation and within the budget. Charles Schwab & Co. is currently in this position and as a result, continues to spend coin on projects and seeing no growth.The second quadrant is aid zone. Companies in this quadrant are less aligned to major(ip) line of reasoning objectives however are maintaining below average levels of growth stock-still though they are less effective and spending more in IT as a result. In this zone, IT is not performing well, is not treasured and is segregated from the companys main functions. Management is budgeting enough to keep the system eatning, but IT is not providing any added value to the business. Third is the well-oiled IT quadrant which can be categorized as second best. In this group, companies are highly effective at bringing projects in on time and on budget. They are more focused on execution. Still, companies are less aligned meaning that their IT group does not fully understand the priorities of the business and where to spend the resources.Lastly, the IT-enabled growth quadrant is where all companies would like to be. This quadrant encompasses those companies who are not only highly effective at making IT projects successful, but are also highly aligned in relation to their business objectives. Examples of companies who have succeeded in this respect are Nestle, Wal-Mart, FedEx and Dell.The following are IT-related issues that organizations are currently facing as they attempt to align their business goals with IT applied science Believing that alignment is the solution to their IT problems, companies are spending enormous amounts of money without solving any problems. Various divisions are driving independent initiatives, separately one designed to address its own competitive needs, resulting in complexness of IT systems (no standardization). As a result, be increase and the fragmented divisions make it harder for managers to array across business units. Complexity in systems is making enhancements to systems and improvements to cornerstones more and more difficult to implement and potential benefits are left unused. Redundant applications that perform the same or similar functions. Outsourcing the wrong activities. Data in octuple information systems are viewed as garbage and producing inconsistencies (i.e. salespeople are promoting products that are discontinued) In companies similar to Charles Schwab & Co. for example IT staff response have become behindhand and expensive IT engineers are spending more time fixing bugs in the systems than ever before and several big and ambitious projects are derelict and preventing the company from being competitive.CriteriaThe following criteria will be used to respect each of the alternatives IT spending must be aligned with the companys growth strategies (need to reduce IT costs i.e. savings on software licensing costs where bleeding money, and head count). M ust be shared ownership and shared governance of IT projects. guide to reduce complexity (or emphasize simplicity). Increase competency (doing things in a cost effective way with no duplicate of time and effort). Economically feasible. IT infrastructure to support networked operations in multiplex locations. Need to centralize and simplify the IT functions. Need high effectiveness to grasp an objective through the use of 1. simplicity (or reducing complexity) by implementing companywide standards, renewal legacy systems, building new solutions on simplified and standardized infrastructure 2. right sourcing choosing the right source for a capability and maximizing effectiveness while minimizing cost and 3. accountability executives should get the information they need to measure the progress of IT and IT people should be held accountable for outcomes. IT needs to be reliable, without tautological complexity, and needs to deliver projects consistently with desired func tionality, timing and cost. IT systems need to run smoothly and reliably. IT functions such as architecture and infrastructure need to be balanced with respect to the needs of the entire organization and those of individual businesses. Need a good governance structure so as to stripe parameters to keep an organization on track (i.e. no more than four new technology releases per year).