An organization that I believe does not conduct adequate strategic IS planning would be my
current employer. I work at a sizeable soft-drink production plant on the production side,
but from what I can see there is a lack of strategic IS planning. They lack in this area
mainly because the plant is in a smaller town. Because of this, there is a lack of
understanding of the importance of strategic IS planning and possibly a lack of resources to
invest in it. The implications of inadequate strategic IS planning are significant. Without
proper planning, organizations may miss opportunities to implement new technologies,
optimize their processes, and improve their overall performance. Also, organizations might
waste resources on projects that do not align with their goals or fail to deliver expected
benefits. As an IT professional, I would explain that strategic IS planning is crucial for
organizations to identify and select IS projects that align with their business objectives.
Without strategic IS planning they risk investing in IS projects that do not deliver expected
benefits, wasting resources, and missing out on opportunities to improve their organization's
operations and competitiveness.
While working in the healthcare profession, One of the most crucial changes in the
healthcare industry was the HITECH Act (The Health Information Technology for
Economic and Clinical Health) of 2009. That mandated all healthcare facilities convert from
paper documentation to EMR (Electronic Medical Records) by January 1, 2014. Since these
regulations involved facilities incurring additional operational costs, management started
cutting corners by using cheap vendors, failing to understand the industry's needs, and
ignoring the industry's reality and facts. Some of the reasons why a strategic plan did not
reach its full potential are as follows.
Partial commitment from ownership or leadership leads to cost-cutting investment in
refurbished, outdated hardware and software, compatibility issues that would crash or
freeze, resulting in staff productivity issues, overtime, and causing backup documentation
crises in patient health recordings.
Compliance is vital in strategic planning in any industry; they are the framework that gives
groundwork to ethical practices in the business world; for example, if boundaries are not set
in using and releasing medical records results in a violation of the law. HIPPA laws and
security mandate medical providers to monitor and control PHI (Patient's Health
information). Patient EMRs should be confidential, protected, and require prior
authorization before discussing or sharing with other medical professionals, families, and
third-party vendors. Implication-related poorly implied strategic planning leads to
significant compliance issues related to industry standards and can face legal and financial
consequences. Furthermore, failure to abide by strategic planning leads to
miscommunication, lack of organizational cohesion, lost information, plans falling through
the cracks, essential issues like compliance, and resources skyrocketing costs.
The importance of strategic planning is relevant to business today; understanding how
outdated management is to the current market standard is an essential factor that can give
the planner insight into the organization and defines the best route in achieving the short
and long-term goals. The primary step in strategic business planning is outlining the
business purpose, budget, and goals aligning with current and feature needs, identifying
strengths and weaknesses, and what hinders growth. Furthermore, a well-designed plan is a
well-informed client, which can put resources at your disposal and add value to the business
and customer convenience. One organization that comes to mind as not conducting
adequate strategic information system (IS) planning is a small local retailer that has been
operating for decades with a traditional brick-and-mortar approach, and has only recently
begun to embrace e-commerce as a secondary channel for sales. Two reasons why this
organization might not be conducting strategic IS planning appropriately or at all are:
1. Lack of Awareness: The organization's leadership may lack awareness of the
importance of strategic IS planning or may not fully understand the potential
benefits it can bring. They may view IS as a secondary function and not prioritize
strategic planning for IS projects, resulting in a lack of dedicated resources, budget,
and attention.
2. Short-term Focus: The organization may have a short-term focus and prioritize
immediate operational needs over long-term strategic planning. They may be more
concerned with day-to-day operations and short-term revenue generation rather than
investing in strategic IS planning that requires time, effort, and resources with long-
term benefits.
The implications of inadequate strategic IS planning can be detrimental to the organization's
competitiveness and growth. Without proper planning, the organization may miss out on
opportunities to leverage technology for optimizing operations, enhancing customer
experience, and gaining a competitive edge. It may also face challenges in adapting to
changing market dynamics, technological advancements, and customer preferences, leading
to a loss of market share and revenue.As an IT professional, I would emphasize the
importance of strategic IS planning in identifying and selecting IS projects by highlighting
the following points: Alignment with Business Goals, Resource Allocation, Risk
Management, and Innovation and Agility. Working as a government contractor in the
information technology/cybersecurity field, our organization at times does not conduct
adequate strategic information planning for the following reasons:
• Compliance: Government systems need approval to operate (ATO) to run. This
ATO is driven by the Federal Information System Management Act (FISMA) law.
There are times when controls or technologies are mandated to be put into place
without any consideration to end user experiences or sufficient testing to determine
the impact to the system.
• Lack of understanding: As with the compliance example, there are times when the
information assurance (IA) team lacks the understanding of the control or the
technology and therefore doesn’t strategically plan its implementation.
The implications of inadequate strategic planning in our organization has lead to negative
impact causing lost of productivity and poor moral. As an example we had a situation
where host based firewalls needed to be installed on each workstation. The sponsor was the
chief information security officer (CISO) the implementation was being done by system
administrators and stakeholders were end users/developers. The system administrator lacks
the planning, rolled it out without understanding what port needed to be opened for the
developers to continue working on software that was being developed, as well as letting
them know when it was going to be done. The software team spent a day troubleshooting
their system because they thought it failed, just to find out that it was the firewall port that
caused the issue. The importance of strategic planning is to align the information system
with business mission. It was once explained to me that you wouldn’t put a hundred-dollar
lock on a ten-dollar bike. As an IT Professional I would explain the importance and process
of planning, analysis, design, and implantation. This would then allow stakeholders to
understand risk and if there is value to the business with the project. Strategic planning is
used for long-term goals and operations within the organization. Here, you'll look at the
mission statement and the vision statement to help define the goals of the organization.
Mission and vision statements align the organization's goals and objectives with its purpose
and values. The mission statement provides the organization's purpose, and the vision
statement provides an understanding of its future aspirations. The strategic planning process
helps ensure the organization is moving in the right direction by aligning the goals and
objectives with its mission and vision statements. In short, we use strategic planning to
move towards a common goal. There are several reasons why an organization might not
conduct adequate strategic information system (IS) planning. Here are two possible reasons:
Lack of awareness or understanding: The organization's leadership may not fully
understand the importance of strategic IS planning or may not have the necessary expertise
to carry out the planning process effectively. In such cases, they may not allocate sufficient
resources, time or effort to the planning process or may prioritize other initiatives over
strategic IS planning.
Resistance to change:
• The organization may have a culture that resists change, and this may make it difficult to
introduce new ideas or systems. This resistance can also occur if there is a perceived threat
to existing power structures or if there is a lack of trust in the IT department's ability to
deliver new systems or change existing ones.
The implications of inadequate strategic IS planning can be significant. For example:
• Wasted resources: The organization may end up investing in IT systems that do not align
with its overall strategy or that do not provide the expected benefits. This can result in
wasted resources, including time and money.
• Lost opportunities: Without a strategic IS plan, the organization may miss out on
opportunities to leverage technology to gain a competitive advantage or improve its
operations. This can put the organization at a disadvantage compared to its competitors.
Long before I became an IAAM, and telecommunications engineer I worked for ADT
Security Services as a Technical Support phone agent. When I say that they did not have an
adequate and strategic viewpoint on their it infrastructure, it deployments, it rolls backs and
anything else that factored into their Salesforce cloud-based environment I am not kidding.
There were so many times that I would be in a phone que with 3000+ customers just
waiting on the other end of that que waiting for an agent. Ate that same time their
information technology department would send those automated alerts via Teams talking
about it being mandatory patching time, or rollbacks. So those same 3000+ clients in that
Genysis phone que would just be dropped with no regard for how long they were in that
que, or the needs that brought them to it. When they came back into said que and finally
reached an agent the response, we were told by management to say was "We are sorry
however we had critical updates to do but we are here now so how can we assist you"? This
was also not a freak occurrence and happened at least twice a week. Combine this with an
improperly configured Active Directory user configuration file and an exposed and
confirmed compromised Active Directory Contact list, you can just image the chaotic
nonsense that occurred on a daily basis. If it was not apparent from my explanation above,
I will highlight it a bit more. When these sorts of strategic failures occur it not only effects
the clientele of that organizations but also its employees. As when those customers do catch
up with you, they are not trying to hear that you had critical updates to do. They will
openly tell you that is not their problem, and they are paying you to service their systems
and not to provide them excuses. Given that was the home security industry this also caused
many issues with the acquisition of monitoring information for clientele about their
systems, also information regarding their billing proponents of their account and even if
they needed technical support on their system, this even effect that. As all of the tools that
you would be using to assist those clients with their technical support needs where run
through that same infrastructure that was just taken down during live production time.
Strategic its planning is essential because as I highlighted above you can see what occurs
when you do not have such a strategic and sound plan in place. It also does interfere with
the business continuity plan and can interrupt practically every sector of the business and
practically bring said business to a stop. Stops in business mean lost revenue, lost
reputation, possible sanctions or criminal charges (Depending on the regulations of what
compliance that downtime has just violated). In short not having a sound and strategic is
plan that runs in line with your business continuity plan is just a disaster for any business
waiting to happen. Strategic planning is vital; it lays the framework for identifying business
needs, continuity, and customer confidence. However, this planning is not simple; they
attach different feasibility. For example, in my previous healthcare job, my team of
therapists and vendors got an opportunity to plan and design a three thousand-square-foot
rehabilitation center. We went to the drawing board every time a specification needed
changes or updates, such as what type of flooring was better non-skid so patients don’t slip
on fall. Setting workstations for privacy, what types of IT resources and access points, and
what type of therapeutic equipment and technologies were to be purchased so patients can
achieve maximum potential results. The best part was every team member had roles and
responsibilities that the team bought to the planning board before the ownership approval. It
was a great learning experience and a challenge in which we all got great satisfaction and
had to create a waiting list demand for therapeutic services at the center. Planning is the
cornerstone of everything in business and just life in general. If you where to look at all of
the successful business in any of the industries around the world, you will see the same
pattern replicated. The finite planning and continued communication between all
departments of that organization in all the stages of everything. So, to say that planning is
important is such an understatement as your statement highlighted. I used to have a
supervisor back when I worked with the Air Force. He would always tell me that without
proper planning, the only thing you're going to find is the unemployment line or a court
room filing for bankruptcy. This statement, even though it is a bit up front is so
phenomenal and true. It cuts right to the raw of it all, which is the exact same thing your
post did for me. Hence why I had to respond to it.
