The smart way to integrate business, systems, and technologies: Driving business and IT alignment

Improved efficiency and effectiveness can be achieved through the smart use of integrated business solutions that engage strategy, people, process, and technology. The challenge comes in deploying information systems that achieve the utility's overarching business strategy. Core business systems can potentially cost a utility millions of dollars. By successfully aligning IT strategies with utility business strategies, utility managers can access near-real-time data to quantify actual utility performance, make more informed business decisions, and increase their level of responsiveness to improve customer service. Utilities should assess how well changes are working. One way to consider alignment is within the context of the five keys of effective utility management (EUM). The primary goal of IT strategic planning is to ensure that IT investments are applied in a manner that makes business sense across the entire organization.