Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions

Information Strategy

The information strategy of my organization provided foundation tools e.g., Information Analyzer, that allowed its employees to examine the position of an employee. Besides that, information workshops and guides were also arranged which offer industry-specific matter designed to make one focus on a workable strategy and understand the requirements (Mocker & Alexander, n.d.).

Different approaches are taken to conceptualize the term of information strategy. The four conceptualizations of information technology include information strategy as an enumerative list, functional departmental strategy, systems of plan and application portfolio as the core of information strategy. Enumerative list is a set of decision which is generally recognized by survey among planners or literature review. The items of the list are grouped in order to be included in the information strategy. As various departments such as production and marketing departments are in charge of majority of the functions of the business, the information strategy is considered to be a functional departmental strategy. Systems of plans approach present domains of information strategy and their relationship in an ordered form. It extends enumerative lists concept by providing reasoning and structuring. The main contents of information strategy should be seen as an application development portfolio. Such an approach involves the discovery of novel application that have the prospective to give rise to advantage over systems of strategic information.

Pros and Cons

Enumerative lists do not offer much benefit to the organization. A limitation of enumerative lists approach is that it becomes hard for a planner to determine if the lists are comprehensive or not as the lists do not have a proper structure. Functional departmental strategy implies the existence of an IT department which offers an IT based infrastructure for communication of information. A restriction of such an approach is that the information strategy gets limited to decision regions which influence the tasks of concerned departments only. Systems of plans offer a structured list of information strategy elements. However, reasoning and planning of domains remain to be unproven for their distinction. Discovery of new applications can help in enhancing information systems of the organization. A limitation of application portfolio may require skilled personnel to operate the newly introduced applications in the organization.

Information Technology Strategy Architecture

There should be a strong relationship and alignment between IT strategies and business strategies. IT capabilities should support business capabilities which are required for execution of business strategy. The directional features such as policies, principles, architectures, and standards of IT strategy are dictated by the business strategy. IT strategies alone do not have a thorough understanding of important aspects of the business. Besides that, the value of Information Technology is not thoroughly understood by executives of business. Opportunities to utilize information technology are not recognized, prioritized, authorized, and implemented that are based on importance to meeting business goals and objectives. Business strategies do not take into consideration the IT perspective in making decisions regarding IT priorities and directions. Therefore, alignment of business strategy with IT strategy is strongly required by every ...