LINKING IT PLANNING TO BUSINESS STRATEGY

Information Strategy Planning is of growing importance. There are available a variety of formal methodologies for carrying out information systems planning, none of which are particularly well aligned to the current business planning views. The author was concerned that the value of the approaches used in business planning, most notably those of Michael Porter, were being ignored by the information systems planning methodologies. Both mechanisms yield insight and both are required to make strategic gains from IT. The paper explains the experience at Simon Engineering in combining Porter's value chain and five forces approach with the more usual Information Engineering methodology for information planning. A workshop approach was adopted and the conclusions drawn that the information strategy must be seen and developed as an integral part of, and at the same time as, the business strategy, and that both Information Engineering and Porter's approaches are necessary component parts of creating an integrated business and IT strategy. IT strategies cannot be developed independently of the business strategy, nor should they follow the business strategy. Successful IT strategies must be developed at the same time as the business strategy.