Harsha dis 2 635

Hello, 

The importance of this alliance between business and IT is that they have to be almost in sync. What I mean by this is that the business's goals have to almost mirror the goals of the IT dept. The success of the business relies on the soundness of its IT dept. What I think is that there needs to be constant communication between the IT dept and the lines of business. The article upholds this, 7 ways to effectively ensure IT-business alignment, “Whether face-to-face or Zoom-to-Zoom, IT leaders should set aside time to meet and discuss important matters with business leaders across their enterprise. “A key component to a good dialogue is simply to speak in plain English, even when trying to explain complex technical issues,” advises Nidal Haddad, principal for ecosystems and alliances at business advisory firm Deloitte Consulting.” Communication is vital whether it be email, zoom, ping, or in-person. The current issues have been communicated throughout the LOBs and IT dept.

The other effective way is how educated is your IT and LOBs on how each other effectively knows each other’s department with no willful ignorance towards each other. The business leaders and IT leaders have to know important aspects of each other’s roles there has to be synergy between units. In the article 7 ways to effectively ensure IT-business alignment, “Collie believes that it is far more useful and productive to ask business leaders about their own jobs, including their view of market trends and the key business challenges they’re facing. “It’s then our job on the IT side to evaluate where technology solutions could be brought online to service those needs,” he states. “That’s really the essence of the IT mission statement.” So, they have to know how each other functions. Trusting each other’s process, having control over that process and the biggest thing is measuring the effectiveness of the alignment.  

This can be so difficult is that there are different variables like different trains of thought and misalignment of goals and strategy. You can’t allow your IT dept to run the LOBs because the LOBs have a profit target they have to accomplish and the way the IT dept wants to run it will not be in line with those LOBs. The opposite can be true for business leaders like they won’t understand how IT works or thinks IT is below them to learn. So that is what I think is the misalignment of the strategy.

Works cited:

Edwards, J. (2020, October 6). 7 ways to effectively ensure IT-business alignment. CIO. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://www.cio.com/article/194067/7-ways-to-effectively-ensure-it-business-alignment.html

Student 2: Chakravathi ;

RE: IT impact on Competitive Forces

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Information Technology Impact on Competitive Forces

An example I can relate to is how information technology influenced strategy for competitive forces in a company that sells and repairs cameras. With the advent of smartphones that have powerful inbuilt cameras, the company struggled with low sales (Fang et al., 2020). The company had to diversify to offer photography services at a reasonable price during events and opened a photoshoot studio. The company penetrated the events photography market and received more clients willing to take photoshoots during special occasions like birthdays and Valentine's days. With time, the company witnessed new entrants through increased photography services during events and the establishment of photoshoot studios. The company had nothing to lose since the camera sales increased and the inflow of repairs doubled. The competitive force impacted by technological changes in the threat of substitute products since smartphones entered the photography industry with a storm; thus, it affected the camera and photography business.

Professionalism, creativity, and diversification aided the company to survive in business since it adopted new features in photography and refashioned its studios. Information technology also impacts the bargaining power of customers in the example since the clients prefer to take photos using smartphones and perceive that photoshoot is a luxury or unnecessary (Bruijl & Gerard, 2018). Therefore, customers bargain because they feel photography dealers should lower the prices since the services are not essential. The clients can conclude what they need since few clients prefer photography and camera vendor services since there are good smartphones that produce quality photographs and are conveniently accessible when required. The threat of new entry is also impacted in this scenario due to the emergence of new photo studios with modern features. Still, the company will not encounter a drop in sales since they will supply the cameras to the new studios and provide maintenance services.

References

Bruijl, D., & Gerard, H. T. (2018). The relevance of Porter's five forces in today's innovative and changing business environment. Available at SSRN 3192207.

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