A lot has been and continues to be written and discussed, in journals, courses and conferences, on business strategy and information technology alignment.  Strategic alignment may be defined as the line of sight between the works that information technology professionals do every day and the strategy of top management within organization.  Strategic alignment throughout an organization is essential to achieve the purpose and goals of the organization.  Strategic alignment brings clarity of direction; essential agreement on the firm's mission, vision, values, unique market position, strategic direction, and overall goals.  Strategic alignment is the key to an effective organization.

Strategic alignment involves the bringing together into harmony three distinct groups and processes: Strategy, Technology, and Management.

Strategy

Strategy encompasses one or more decisions impacting your whole organization, concerning how critical external factors such as the economy, markets and your competition, shape how you will focus your resources, consisting of knowledge, finances, technology, and facilities, so that the organization delivers competitively distinct value to your customers and/or clients. Strategic alignment is the implementation of strategy by aligning the organization's processes to that strategy.  Strategy is not a single plan however, it is a process.  To transform your organization into the one you envision takes more than just a plan, great strategy and implementation; you also need to make that strategy an integral part, or the very core, of your organization.

You can achieve these organizational goals by aligning organizational strategy, culture and processes with your business environment. Focus on your organization’s distinctive capabilities, competencies, and resources in the areas that your market and customers value. Balance your present and future business demands so that your organization can operate sustainably. Alignment between your goals and resources helps develop a long term strategy for building successful organizations in times of uncertainty.

How do you insure that your goals and objectives align with the overall strategy of your firm?  The key element in this puzzle is the dedication and commitment of top management within the organization to build upon the organization’s strengths and develop a firm commitment to meet the needs of clients and customers.

Management

Top Management is ultimately the strategy formulator, whereas Information Technology (IT) Management is strategy implementer.  Where top management formulates the strategies to strive for; IT Management is only the strategy implementer.  The specific characteristic of top management that will make this process succeed is that of the business visionary; the one who communicates how the emerging IT capabilities and functionality, as well as changing governance patterns in the IT marketplace, will impact the business strategy. 

Alignment will make it much easier for your management team to push the organization in the direction you intend.  Unfortunately, many organizations – even in this age of abundant technology and management tools – still try to navigate the waves of change without a guidance system.  Developing a plan, through the combined efforts of all concerned stakeholders, will provide management with the primary tool it needs to build a successful alignment between organization objectives and technological resources within the organization. The key role of management will be to convey this plan in such a way that those involved not only fully understand the task at hand, but also fully accept it.

Technology

To achieve this goal, it is generally believed that the general strategy has to be aligned with functions such as human resources management and information technology.  This can involve a technology road map and R&D policy, depending on your organizational needs.  It is clear that even though IT has evolved from its traditional orientation of administrative support, toward a more strategic role within an organization, there is still a fundamental lack of established frameworks within which to understand the potential of IT for tomorrow's organizations.  No resource, over the last quarter century, has had more of an impact on today’s organization than information technology.  As a result, a critical factor for attaining the dynamic capability required in today’s challenging business environment is not a specific set of sophisticated technological functionality but the organizational and management capabilities to leverage technology to build customer and client confidence in the organization as well as differentiate it from competitors.

Conclusion

Strategic alignment is an important component of strategic planning, but it is not an event, it is a process due to the ever changing nature of the business world and the ever evolving nature of organizations.  Strategic alignment throughout an organization is essential to achieve the purpose and goals of the organization.  Strategic alignment:

Help management ask the right questions. 

Helps balance compliance and commitment. 

Will change and improve the way information flows between the board, executive leadership and senior management.

By bringing together the key forces of information technology and the visionary promise of top management, organizations can build strategic plans that will help performance in the short run and build success for the long term.