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Using and validating the strategic alignment model

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The literature suggests that firms cannot be competitive if their business and information technology strategies are not aligned. Yet achieving strategic alignment continues to be a major concern for business executives. A number of alignment models have been offered in the literature, primary among them the strategic alignment model (SAM). However, there is little published research that attempts to validate SAM or describe its use in practice. This paper reports on the use of SAM inafinancial services firm. Data from completed projects are applied to the model to determine whether SAM is useful as a management tool to create, assess and sustain strategic alignment between information technology and the business. The paper demonstrates that SAM has conceptual and practical value. The paper also proposesa practical framework that allows management, particularly technology management, to determine current alignment levels and to monitor and change future alignment as required. Through the use of this framework, alignment is more likely to be achieved in practice.
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Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 223–246
www.elsevier.com/locate/jsis
Using and validating the strategic alignment model
David Avisona,*, Jill Jonesb, Philip Powellc, David Wilsond
aESSEC Business School, Paris, France
bState Street Corporation, Sydney, Australia
cUniversity of Bath, Bath, UK
dUniversity of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Received 26 February 2002; accepted 15 August 2004
Available online 2 October 2004
Abstract
The literature suggests that firms cannot be competitive if their business and information
technology strategies are not aligned. Yet achieving strategic alignment continues to be a major
concern for business executives. A number of alignment models have been offered in the literature,
primary among them the strategic alignment model (SAM). However, there is little published
research that attempts to validate SAM or describe its use in practice. This paper reports on the use of
SAM in a financial services firm. Data from completed projects are applied to the model to determine
whether SAM is useful as a management tool to create, assess and sustain strategic alignment
between information technology and the business. The paper demonstrates that SAM has conceptual
and practical value. The paper also proposes a practical framework that allows management,
particularly technology management, to determine current alignment levels and to monitor and
change future alignment as required. Through the use of this framework, alignment is more likely to
be achieved in practice.
q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Strategic alignment; Strategic alignment model; Alignment framework; Alignment in practice
1. Introduction
The literature suggests that firms cannot be competitive or successful if their business
and information technology (IT)/information systems (IS) strategies are not aligned.
* Corresponding author. Address: Department of SID, ESSEC Business School, Avenue Bernard Hirsch-BP
105, 95021, Cergy-Pontoise cedex, France. Tel.: C33-1-344-33195.
E-mail address: avison@essec.fr (D. Avison).
0963-8687/$ - see front matter q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jsis.2004.08.002

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D. Avison et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 223–246
Strategic alignment positively influences IT effectiveness (Porter, 1987; Galliers, 1991;
Ciborra, 1997), leading to greater business profitability (Luftman et al., 1996). Conversely,
it is argued that failure to leverage IT may seriously hamper a firm’s performance and
viability (Weill and Broadbent, 1998; Venkatraman, 2000).
The importance of strategic alignment has been stated frequently (Earl, 1996; Labovitz
and Rosansky, 1997; Corrall, 2000), indeed, Galliers and Newell (2003) call it a central
tenet of much of the theory and practice of IS strategy. It is a key concern for business
executives (Luftman et al., 1996) and is ranked among the most important issues faced by
IT executives (Papp, 2001; Tallon and Kraemer, 2003; Trainor, 2003). This importance is
reinforced by numerous industry surveys that reveal executives’ perceptions of alignment
(Fitzharris, 1999; Head, 2000; Kennedy, 2000; Leigh, 2000; Weil, 2001). In Luftman
et al.’s (1996) survey of 500 US executives from 300 organisations, about half believed
their organisations to be aligned.
However, despite the widespread acceptance that business and IT strategies should be
aligned, the nature of alignment is inadequately clarified in the literature:
The concept of linkage has been historically invoked as a metaphor to argue for the
integration of business and information technology strategies without adequate
articulation or clarification of its characteristics (Henderson and Venkatraman,
1989).
Although Luftman (1996), Yetton (1997), Hsaio and Ormerod (1998) and Burn (1997)
provide some examples of enablers and inhibitors of alignment, the literature provides
little guidance on how to achieve alignment between business and IT strategies; the
impacts misalignment might have on a firm; and what management can do to diagnose,
achieve and maintain alignment (Luftman et al., 1996; Papp and Motiwalla, 1996).
This paper first reviews the debate on alignment in Section 2 and argues for using the
SAM model of strategic alignment. We discuss SAM, along with its extensions in Section
3 and then investigate its use in a financial services firm in Section 4. Here, data from a set
of completed projects are applied to the model and this research suggests that the model
has value as a management tool to assess, create and sustain strategic alignment between
IT/IS and the business. The paper concludes by proposing a practical model that allows
technology management to determine current alignment and to help monitor and alter
future alignment as required.
2. Strategic alignment—the debate
In contrast to some other areas of IS research, there is debate in the literature about what
alignment actually is, why it is needed, how firms may go about the task of becoming
aligned, and how it should best be researched. While there is little agreement on
conceptualising alignment and its research basis, the literature does regularly lament the
paucity of studies that assess how organisations carry out alignment in practice, an issue
that is addressed later in this paper. This section reviews existing research and places our
contribution within the dimensions of that research.
Strategic alignment has many pseudonyms. It is also termed fit (Porter, 1996),
integration (Weill and Broadbent, 1998), bridge (Ciborra, 1997), harmony (Luftman et al.,

D. Avison et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 223–246
225
1996), fusion (Smaczny, 2001) and linkage (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1989).
However, in all cases, it concerns the integration of strategies relating to the business and
its IT/IS.
There are those who argue that IS alignment is not an issue in its own right. Some
researchers, for example, Smaczny (2001), assert that as IS is pervasive in business, it
should not be regarded as separable from business strategy, and therefore the need for
alignment does not arise. Smaczny uses the term fusion to describe this integration.
Yet, strategy in its broadest sense is all about alignment or matching organisational
resources (including IS) with environmental threats and opportunities (Andrews, 1980).
Indeed, IT management can be conceptualised as a problem of aligning the
relationships between the business and IT infrastructure domain (Reich and Benbasat,
1996) in order to take advantage of IT opportunities and capabilities (Sambarmarthy
and Zmud, 1992).
Alignment is seen to assist a firm in three ways: by maximising return on IT investment,
by helping to achieve competitive advantage through IS, and by providing direction and
flexibility to react to new opportunities. However, the apparent gap between the decision
to invest in IT and the realisation of benefits (Weill and Broadbent, 1998) highlights the
risk of using IT to initiate new strategies and transform business. Co-operation between the
business and the IT department to maximise investment in technology is vital, and with
this in mind, IT investments and business objectives have to be considered together. Yet,
few senior management career paths include responsibility for IT (Weill and Broadbent,
1998) and technology is typically treated as a cost centre or viewed as an expense rather
than an enabler of business value (Venkatraman, 1997; Avison et al., 1999a; Papp, 2001).
Although Jarvenpaa and Ives (1994) argue that too tight a fit between IS and business
strategy may reduce strategic flexibility, alignment is usually viewed as beneficial as the
following shows. Lederer and Mendelow (1989), for example, suggest that alignment
increases the likelihood of developing systems more critical to the organisation and of
obtaining top management support for IS. As IT’s role in corporate strategy development
increases, the application and analysis of alignment will facilitate a more competitive and
profitable organisation (Galliers, 1991; Porter, 1987). Economic performance may be
enhanced by alignment, by finding the right fit between external positioning and internal
arrangements (Ciborra, 1997). By concentrating on the alignment of strategy and
infrastructure, firms may not only achieve synergy and facilitate the development of
business plans, but also increase profitability and efficiency. These tangible benefits allow
management to focus on the application of IT as a means to leverage their core
competencies, skills and technology scope, resulting in improved efficiency (Papp, 2001;
Luftman et al., 1996).
Having argued that alignment is desirable, a second issue relates to how firms may
become aligned. This is discussed next. The first concern regarding the practice of
alignment is whether strategy or strategising is an appropriate way for firms to attain
alignment. Weill and Broadbent (1998) support this view by arguing that by understanding
and leveraging the business–IT partnership, an organisation can concentrate on the
application of IT to enable the business strategy.
Critics of strategic planning and alignment maintain that the implicit dominance of a
structured strategy process is questionable in an era where uncertainty and flexibility

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D. Avison et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 223–246
predominate and the articulation of the strategic intent is difficult (Ciborra, 1997). Real life
and real strategising is ‘messy’ and human thinking and actions rarely follow strict
modular concepts (McKay and Marshall, 1999; Avison et al., 1999a,b). Strategic
alignment also presumes that management is in full control and that information
infrastructure can deliberately be aligned with emerging management insights (Maes,
1999; Ciborra, 1997; Galliers and Newell, 2003). Hence some argue that strategic
alignment is illusory, even inexpedient (Maes, 1999).
The application of concepts such as strategic fit between resources and opportunities;
generic strategies of low cost versus differentiation versus focus; and the strategic
hierarchy of goals, strategies and tactics may make the strategic process rigid. This has a
negative rather than a positive impact on an organisation when followed specifically and
pedantically (Hamel and Prahalad, 1990). Strategic planning can distort creative thinking
and misguide organisations that embrace it unreservedly (Mintzburg, 1987).
Reich and Benbasat (1996) see IS planning as but one mechanism to achieve linkage.
The intellectual dimensions of linkage require that business and IT plans are internally
consistent with mission, and that they are externally valid, i.e. comprehensive and
balanced to external business and IT environments. They discuss the conceptualisation of
linkages and how they might be measured by understanding current objectives,
congruence in IT vision and self-reporting.
A further debate concerns the measurement of alignment. Ciborra (1997) argues that
management, through knowledge and understanding of alignment, can classify their
strategy in terms of boxes and linear relationships, but back in the real world, they have
difficulty in measuring those relationships or formulating processes to apply the alignment
maps in practice. Measures that align everyone within the organisation, with the intentions
of the business and with the key goals of their respective departments, are needed to
achieve strategic alignment, but there are no indicators as to what these measures might be
(Labovitz and Rosansky, 1997; Galliers, 1991).
There is also disagreement as to whether strategic alignment should be viewed as an
outcome or as a dynamic process. The former view was dominant (Weill and Broadbent,
1998; Porter and Millar, 1985; Earl, 1989) and consequently the need to maintain alignment
dynamically was rarely acknowledged. However more recent research argues for dynamic
alignment (Labovitz and Rosansky, 1997; Venkatraman, 2000; Ciborra, 1997).
Smaczny (2001) claims that no studies focus on how organisations actually achieve
alignment (though clearly there are some organisations that attempt this) nor, indeed,
whether alignment is the right way of looking at the issue. Most models of alignment
assume that organisations are built on mechanistic principles and that management uses
structured, planning-oriented approaches to business objectives. In such firms alignment
may work, but not in others.
The early work on strategic processes essentially viewed firms as homogeneous. More
recent research, especially with the increasing interest in competencies and capabilities,
recognises that firms have different resources and are differently able to marshal these.
Tallon et al. (2000) suggest that as strategic alignment is one of the most important issues
facing business and IS executives, focussed firms will achieve more alignment and that
differently focussed firms will use different techniques for their IT evaluation. The authors
examine executives’ perceptions of the business value of IT. They identify a number of

D. Avison et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 223–246
227
firm types. In unfocussed firms there are no clear goals for IT and executives are
indifferent to it. IT is viewed as an expense, so management delays IT purchases and then
mismanages or under-manages the IT investments they do make. In operations-focussed
firms, the goals concern the operational effectiveness of IT. These goals involve reducing
operating costs and increasing efficiency. In market-focussed firms, IT is used to enhance
strategic positioning by creating or improving value propositions for customers. Finally,
dual-focussed firms improve operational effectiveness and strategic positioning simul-
taneously by market reach and new market creation. Empirically, the authors assess
strategic alignment using a single item—extent to which IT strategy supports business
strategy. The results suggest that executives in dual-focussed firms perceived the highest
level of IT business value, followed by those in market-focussed firms, those in
operations-focussed firms, and finally by unfocussed firm executives. Executives with
more focussed goals for IT perceive higher levels of alignment, and higher levels of
strategic alignment are associated with higher perceived levels of IT business value.
Using the Miles and Snow firm typology rather than firm-focus, Sabherwal and Chan
(2001) show that alignment improves business performance and business success.
Prospectors should develop and use market IS and strategic decision support systems.
Systems imitation is less useful, unless strategies are similar and the significance of
association between alignment and business success depends on business strategy. There
is significant correlation between alignment and performance for prospectors and
analysers but not for defenders. This suggests that senior managers in defenders should not
argue strongly for alignment. However, Sabherwal and Chan (2001, p. 27) conclude that
‘The processes by which alignment is accomplished (i.e. practically and effectively
worked out) in organisations need to be better understood’.
Concurrently, Hirschheim and Sabherwal (2001) assess whether firms that follow the
Miles and Snow typology suffer differentially from problems in achieving alignment.
They identify three problematic trajectories in seeking alignment: paradoxical decisions,
excessive transformations and uncertain turnarounds. Defenders are thought to have a
‘utility’ profile for IS use, achieved through low cost delivery, often outsourced. Analysers
will seek alliances, perhaps by strategic sourcing. Lastly, prospectors have an infusion
profile involving alignment through business leadership. Here IS is insourced and
decentralised. Problematic alignment trajectories are explained by organisational inertia
often due to sequential attention to goals, knowledge gaps, split executive responsibilities
and underestimation of the extent of problems. The authors suggest that knowledge and
process integration, planning processes involving multiple perspectives and transitional
figures or powerful external forces may be employed to aid strategic IS alignment efforts.
Understanding processes lead to consideration of what may enable or inhibit alignment
(Luftman et al., 1996). The enablers include executive support for IT, starting development
in tandem, leadership from the IT department that the IT department prioritises workload
well and that the firms’ resources are shared. In contrast, the inhibitors are that the IT
department prioritises workload poorly, there is no close relationship between the IT
department and the business, the IT department does not know its customers and it does
not meet its commitments, resulting in little executive support for IT.
Papp (1999) concurs that alignment is the key to achieving improved profitability from
IT. For him, alignment considers strategic fit between strategy and infrastructure, and

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D. Avison et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 223–246
fundamental integration between business and IT. He identifies 12 perspectives on
alignment in the literature, of which fusion is common. This is one of the few papers to
offer managers a method by which they may assess or achieve alignment. This involves
assessing the firm’s perspectives using the alignment model, learning to recognise and
leverage IT to maximum efficiency, incorporating financial measurements suitable for the
particular industry, giving everyone a role to facilitate synergy between IT and the
business, and finally, continuous review of alignment and assessment. However, while
these may be sensible steps to take, this is somewhat general in nature and there is
insufficiency here for a manager to use in practice.
In analysing alignment in small firms, Hussain et al. (2002) concur that alignment is
used to mean a variety of things. Different researchers have focussed on different parts of
the Henderson and Venkatraman (1989) model, either the process or the content. These
include linking mechanisms to achieve alignment with a social element (who is involved)
and an intellectual element (methods and techniques). Reviewing various attempts to
measure fit (Atkins, 1994; Lefebvre et al., 1992; Chan et al., 1997; Luftman et al., 1999;
Reich and Benbasat, 2000), the authors suggest that there is little consensus on the factors
involved. Their results show that aligned firms have greater IT maturity, CEO knowledge
of software is greater in aligned firms and that there is no support for a relationship
between external IT expertise and IT alignment. Hussain et al. conclude that there remains
a ‘need for research into processes associated with alignment’ (p. 119). In a companion
paper, Cragg et al. (2002) suggest that many small manufacturers had achieved a high
degree of alignment between business strategy and IT, ‘but we don’t know how this was
achieved’ (p. 122). The highly aligned firms perceive greater impacts from IT.
Luftman (1996), Luftman (1997) and Papp (2001) do provide some practical
application of strategic alignment (for example, where to start and how to continue the
alignment process), yet fail to test the theories and methods in a practical manner in real
life situations and organisations (Avison et al., 1999a,b). Most firms of any size have had
strategic plans for many years and their increasing linkage with business strategy should
have resulted in some form of alignment. However, this is not clearly the case, and this
suggests that a problem still exists. Perhaps, there is a need for a clearer framework,
despite models being available (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1989; Ciborra, 1997).
This section has demonstrated that there is a lack of agreement in the literature as to
how firms do and should align. Part of this lack concerns a focus on theoretical rather than
empirical studies, but other aspects point to disagreement as to how alignment is best
researched. We now investigate this aspect.
Although alignment is a top management concern, no comprehensive model of the
construct is commonly used. Reich and Benbasat (2000) contend that strategic alignment
may be approached from a process or outcome perspective. Process research involves
investigating planning activities, while outcome research involves realised strategies.
Research of these two types would either examine strategies, structures and planning
methods, or would focus on actors, values, communication and understanding. They
suggest that there are two dimensions to strategy creation; an intellectual dimension that
investigates the content of plans and planning approaches, and a social one looking at the
people involved in the creation of alignment. As alignment is the degree to which the IT
mission, objectives and plans support and are supported by the business mission,

D. Avison et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 223–246
229
objectives and plans, it is a state or outcome and its determinants are processes. Reich and
Benbasat claim that the social dimension is less researched and which research treats
strategy as a rational process. In any planning process, the involvement of top management
is important as it improves the quality of IT, the progressive use of IT, rational innovation
and IT effectiveness.
Regarding process, Das et al. (1991) identify five dimensions. Formality is about
structure in the planning process, while scope assesses its comprehensiveness.
Participation requires the involvement of managers, and influences are about the power
of stakeholders. Finally, co-ordination investigates planning process corrections. In
contrast, outcome research focuses on realised rather than planned or intended strategies.
Reich and Benbasat (2000) show that five elements contribute to short-term alignment.
These are shared domain knowledge between the IT department and the business domain,
IT implementation success, communications, planning connections between IT and the
business, and business direction. In the longer term, there is little support for their model,
only shared domain knowledge unambiguously distinguishes high from low achievers,
though long-term business direction is also important.
There is an issue regarding the unit of analysis in alignment research. This concerns
whether projects, firms or processes are the appropriate item to study. For example, Tallon
and Kraemer (2003) examine alignment at a process rather than the firm level, employing,
as a surrogate for alignment, cross-referencing in plans. They comment that some studies
use executive perceptions of IT payoffs to try to understand the link between strategic
alignment and IT business value. This approach has some support from Venkatramen and
Ramanjam (1987) who find correlations between executives’ perceptions and reality.
Tallon and Kraemer introduce the notion of IT shortfall (where IT fails to support the
business strategy) and IT under-utilisation (where business strategy fails to use IT). Their
results show that alignment is highest in production, operations and customer relations,
and lowest in sales and marketing. They further suggest that strategic alignment may lead
to greater payoffs from IT, but that the relationship is only valid up to a certain critical
level of alignment. However, Reich and Benbasat (1996) dismiss the use of written reports
in alignment research, as they claim that reports are not used and can easily become out of
date.
Finally, most alignment research treats alignment as a static end state rather than a
moving target. Sabherwal et al. (2001) investigate how alignment evolves over time using
a punctuated equilibrium model, i.e. long periods of stability followed by short periods of
revolutionary change. If this sort of model applies, then static contingent models are
unlikely to be appropriate. A punctuated equilibrium model suggests that even after
alignment is achieved, environmental changes can reduce alignment due to over-
emphasis, complacency and inertia, engendering a need for revolutionary change. Their
results demonstrate that some firms had low alignment or misalignment even during
evolutionary periods. Additionally, all the revolutions required some combination of five
strong triggers—environmental shifts, sustained low performance, influential outsiders,
strong leadership and perceptual transformation. The conclusions are that resolution by
redesign is used but does not often work, although revolutions sometimes go too far. To
address this, the IS strategic management profile should include business and IS strategy
and structure.

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D. Avison et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 223–246
This discussion has shown that there is a clear need for further research into alignment,
especially the practicalities of its achievement. Having provided an overview of
alignment, drawing attention to gaps in the research, this paper now discusses the chosen
model of alignment and how it was researched in one organisation. This will enable us to
demonstrate a practical framework to determine current alignment levels in firms and to
monitor and change future alignment as required. Through the use of this framework,
alignment is more likely to be achieved in practice.
3. Strategic alignment model (SAM) and extensions
3.1. Strategic alignment model
A number of models of strategic alignment have been proposed. The two key ones that
have attracted most attention from researchers are the MIT90s model (Scott Morton, 1991)
and the SAM (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1989). The latter is employed here as:
In comparison to the elements of the MIT90s framework, SAM draws a distinction
between the external perspective of IT (IT strategy) and the internal focus of IT (IT
infrastructure and process). This recognises the potential of IT to both support and
shape business policy. It also elevates IT strategy from the traditional role of IT as
solely an internal support mechanism (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1989).
This distinction implies two levels of integration: strategic integration between IT and
the business strategy, which establishes the capability of IT at a strategic level, and
operational integration, the link between IT infrastructure and process and organisational
internal infrastructure and processes.
The SAM has been the basis for much of the strategic IT research. In our research, the
model is used to discuss components of strategy and structure in an organisation and the
factors to consider in assessing alignment.
The model (Fig. 1) is defined in terms of four domains of strategic choice: business
strategy, IT strategy, organisation infrastructure and processes, and IT infrastructure and
processes. Each has its constituent components: scope, competencies and governance at
the external level; and infrastructure, skills and process at the internal level. The model is
conceptualised in terms of two fundamental characteristics of strategic management:
strategic fit (the interrelationships between external and internal domains) and functional
integration (integration between business and technology domains).
Henderson and Venkatraman (1989) incorporate cross-domain perspectives, arguing
that neither strategic nor functional integration alone is sufficient to align an organisation
effectively. The multi-variate co-alignment (alignment perspective) addresses functional
and strategic integration. The linkage between strategy and infrastructure and processes is
examined in terms of process, structure and people, rather than at an abstract level of
attempting to relate internal architectures to strategic goals. Multi-variate cross-domain
perspectives work on the premise that strategic alignment at an organisational level can
only occur when three of the four corporate domains are in alignment. The underlying

D. Avison et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 223–246
231
Fig. 1. Strategic alignment (adapted from Henderson and Venkatraman, 1989).
premise is that change cannot happen in one domain without impacting on at least two of
the remaining three domains in some way.
An organisation’s alignment perspective can be derived by drawing a line through the
three dominant domain types, anchor domain, pivot domain and impacted domain:
Anchor domain: this is the strongest domain. It may have the strongest representation at
executive level or be the core business area. It will generally be the initiator of change and
provide the majority of requests for IT resources.
Pivot domain: this domain indicates which functional or strategic domain will
ultimately be affected by the change initiated within the anchor domain. Luftman et al.
(1996) identify this as the weakest domain.
Impacted domain: this domain is impacted the greatest by the change initiated in the
anchor domain. Luftman et al. (1995) and Henderson and Venkatraman (1989) contradict
each other in the interpretation of perspectives, and confuse the identification of the
impacted domain. Henderson and Venkatraman (1989) identify the horizontal direction of
the perspective as the impacted domain and the vertical direction of the perspective as

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D. Avison et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 13 (2004) 223–246
having implications for that domain, independent of which comes first, second or third.
Luftman et al. (1995) identify the second domain as the weakest domain and the third
domain as the impacted domain, in all cases. In Luftman et al., the strongest domain and
the weakest domain are always adjacent to each other but this cannot hold true if the two
domains are in opposite quadrants.
Henderson and Venkatraman provide a definition of each alignment perspective and an
example for each that can be applied within a firm. Although the examples given are
somewhat dated, they still enable understanding of the meaning of each perspective. The
direction of the perspective runs from the anchor domain to the impacted domain, via the
pivot domain. Perspectives are either ‘top down’ strategy driven or ‘bottom up’ process
driven.
3.2. Extensions to the strategic alignment model
Two key strains of research have emerged that follow on from the initial model.
First, Luftman et al. (1996) define and review the original model in a more practical
way though they do not enhance the model itself. Focusing on the concept of alignment
perspectives, they expand the research to identify enablers and inhibitors to alignment
within organisations. Their research confirms that the major enablers and/or inhibitors
to alignment relate to communication and support between business and technology
management. They also confirm the importance of including IT management in the
strategic planning process. Second, Maes (1999) and Maes et al. (2000) enhance the
SAM, producing the unified framework that incorporates additional functional and
strategic layers into the model to reflect the current need for information and
communication.
The unified framework is a generic framework for investigating and interrelating the
different components of information management, and deals with the interrelationships of
business, information, communication and technology at the strategic, structural and
operations levels. This framework is the first real attempt to refine SAM to reflect the fact
that IT and business strategies are moving closer together as technology evolves and
becomes more integrated.
The initial framework adds a third vertical and horizontal domain to the SAM to
reflect the separation of information/communication from technology, stressing the
growing importance of information and information delivery (Fig. 2). Their main
premise is that the use and sharing of information, and not the provision of information,
are the real source of competitive advantage. Information sharing acts as a buffer
between business and technology, making the benefits of information more apparent to
the business.
The horizontal dimension splits the internal domain into structural and operational
levels. The new middle row represents the more long-term architectural components,
competencies and infrastructures of the organisation, combining all functional areas.
The vertical dimension represents the internal and external information/communication
aspects, the interpreting processes of information and communication and knowledge
sharing. The vertical column is the translator, the finder of a common language
between technology and business. At its core, where (infra) structure meets

Document Outline

  • Using and validating the strategic alignment model
    • Introduction
    • Strategic alignment-the debate
    • Strategic alignment model (SAM) and extensions
      • Strategic alignment model
      • Extensions to the strategic alignment model
      • Assessment of the strategic alignment model
    • Empirical research
      • Background
      • Strategy determination and implementation
      • Results
      • Assessment of strategic alignment
    • Proposed framework
      • Step 1
      • Step 2
      • Step 3
      • Step 4
    • Conclusions
    • References

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Using and validating the strategic alignment model

 

 

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