The importance of alignment between IT and the business

Nowadays, one of the most important issues in the companies is the alignment between IT and the business. It is a very difficult issue. First of all, it is necessary that the IT people know more about business, and it is also necessary the business people to know more about IT.

The big issue is because the IT and the business work with different value perspectives, on the whole, the IT uses the data to value perspective and the business area uses the goals to value perspective. Neither of these perspectives are wrong, but both are incomplete. The company needs to align the value perspective, sharing the business view with the IT view, basing IT actions on business strategies, making the IT results and business results converge to the same point of view.

The IT people need to learn more about business, know the business issues. For example, reading the documents from the company, like strategic planning, annual and strategic reports; also is important to develop interpersonal skills.

The business people need to learn what the role and the objective of the IT to the company are. Also they need to know what technologies are being used and how to use the technologies.

For the IT and the business to work together effectively, it is important define some guidelines:
- Define a business strategy and communicate to all business units of the company.
- Define a technology strategy and communicate to all business units of the company.
- Align IT and business in the levels strategic and tactic.
- Synchronize business plans and IT initiatives.
- Define a process to a continuous alignment, looking for identify gaps in IT and business process.

The BI can help the alignment

The companies should use the Business Intelligence to help the alignment between business and IT. When the company is starting a BI project, it is necessary understand the business strategy. The BI team need to study the business’ goals, and they can do that together with the business team, defining and showing how BI can help the business objectives and building together a business strategy plan.

The company also can use the concepts of operational BI to help the alignment. Operational BI can align the overall strategy with business process, using a process-centric perspective, unifying strategic and tactical business initiatives.

The IT and the business working aligned is a big challenge to the board of the companies. Consequently, the companies that solve this difficulty which is an important issue certainly achieve better results in their business.