Organizations collect data. This raw data must be analyzed to tease out useful information. The software used to analyze raw data is known as Business Intelligence (BI). BI is comprised of theories and processes such as data mining, online analytical processing, querying and reporting. BI improves decision making, cuts costs and identifies new business opportunities (Mulcahy, 2007). The web data extraction company, Connotate, uses BI systems, specifically dashboards, to focus on more profitable business, saving them time and money while also boosting customer satisfaction rates (6 Real Life., 2013). Traditionally most BI functions were handled in the IT department. IT departments took a long time to generate reports and get them to …show more content…
Achieving business and IT alignment is a difficult task. To accomplish this, IT strategy should closely support business goals. According to Schiller (2015), the misalignment of business and IT strategy results from issues in one of these 5 areas of IT alignment; Strategy-Driven, Operational, Calendar, Economic or Cultural alignment. Breaking down the IT alignment process into these 5 parts can make business and IT strategy alignment easier to accomplish. Priority should be given to business and IT alignment in the overall strategic plan of a …show more content…
• Strategy evaluation: strategy is reviewed, measured and revised if needed. Strategic planning is essential to building a solid foundation for a business. Businesses have a valuable tool at their disposal to use during every step of the strategic planning process; Decision Support Systems (DSS). DSS falls under the umbrella of BI. It can be said that DSS makes good strategic planning possible. This is illustrated by how a company can use DSS throughout all the levels and stages of strategic planning. At the three levels of strategic planning, DSS helps in the Corporate strategy level by providing essential information to accurately define the current market allowing the manager to plan how to exploit these markets. For Business strategy, DSS can help find efficient ways to deliver and facilitate the planned tactics. At the Functional strategy level, DSS really shines by providing the real-time analytics needed to make day-to-day course corrections to keep a business stay moving in the right
The purpose of this article is to illuminate the need for any organization to have its IT strategy and business strategy properly aligned. While many organizations view IT and business alignment as an event – it is actually an on-going process, or continuous journey. Therefore, the main problem is that many organizations of today still hold these two principles (business mission & IT strategy) as two separate entities. However, in the Information Age – collaboration is key to capturing and retaining market penetration. To not have alignment with the IT and business strategy together is not a matter of want it is a matter of survival. This report will expand upon the need for business and IT strategic alignment as well as examine what happens in lack of a comprehensive plan. This will be done by examining the Vermont Teddy Bear company prior to and after the arrival of Bob Stetzel, the Vice President of Information Technology. This document will view it findings and make recommendations on the immediate and future operations of the company.
| Most successful companies utilize business strategic planning to set priorities and goals for the organization's future; outcomes include short-term goals and long-term strategies. A clearly written, well designed strategic plan can align business units, divisions and employees so that the vision of the management team and the mission of the company can be fulfilled. As companies evolve and the environment changes it is critical for companies to maintain a disciplined execution of the strategic plan.However, if they are not
Strategic planning can dictate the success of any organization if properly planned as well as the failure of an organization if not implemented as planned. Strategic planning is all about making choices. It is a process designed to support leaders in being intentional about their goals and methods. Simply stated, strategic planning is a management tool, and like any management tool, it is used for one purpose only—to help an organization do a better job. This portion of the strategic plan will explain why an
Alignment of an enterprise’s goals with its IT1 and IS1 systems has been a challenge ever since IT became a business enabler. Proposing an IT alignment requires a thorough understanding of the business goals of the enterprise and the knowledge that alignment is an iterative process which requires constant measurement and honing (Chan, 2002). Enterprises often face the problem of balance of priorities between IT and Business objectives. This report deals with one such case that faced alignment and prioritization hardships resulting in an unclear approach to achieve a corporate strategy.
According to literature, strategic planning is vital for strategic management. Burgelman (1994) points that strategic planning is a process which decides how, when and who is going to plan and how the results will be implemented. Drucker (1974) identified that the planning for an organization’s future that includes setting major overall objectives, the determination of basic approaches to be used in
Business–information technology alignment is the tight integration of the IT function with the organization’s strategy, mission, and goals. That is, the IT function directly supports the business objectives of the organization. Such an alignment enables firms to adhere to business objectives, and to maximize the value from investments. An excellent alignment will reduce costs, standardize processes, enhance productivity, improve workflow and communications, sustain repeatable service levels, improve Risk control mechanisms, implement new business strategies, facilitate growth, facilitate competitive advantage by exploiting new technology, enable IT driven projects to meet time and budget requirements, help to optimize the IT budget utilization. As more and more new business opportunities are created, IT plays an
Strategic planning is the process of gathering information from stakeholders, market players, professional entity, and government agency. The purpose of gathering information is formulating a realistic and a workable framework that any organization can implement and work with. Evaluation of information is a key aspect in determine the kind of plans that the organization wish to a chive over certain a period. Strategic planning ensures the implementation is, crafted well, and parties involved be acquitted with it. Developing a good Strategic plan helps a company to implement its missions and visions effectively, and helps the company to evaluate
As we discuss the possibility of emerging into business intelligence software we must keep in mind the overall purpose of using any type of software is to reach strategic goals in order to increase market shares. I will discuss how business intelligence software will allow us to meet those strategic goals. We will establish what type of information and analysis capabilities will be available once this business intelligence software is implemented. We will discuss hardware and system software that will be required to run specific business intelligence software. Lastly, I will give a brief synopsis on three vendors (IBM, Microsoft Microsoft and Oracle) that are dominating the business information software
Strategic planning is essential for all businesses. It allows companies to set goals and implement actions for long-term success. There are different phases of strategic management that help companies evolve and adapt to the changing world for long-term success. The phases are basic financial planning, forecast-based planning, externally oriented (strategic) planning, and strategic management (Wheelen p. 4-5)
In all kinds of business, strategic planning is a requisite. It serves as a direction by visualizing the future based on the current events in the market in a day to day basis. In today's time, it helps the managers and leaders in building a company with great values and effective system. It can either be effective or a failure to a particular company depending on its application. That is why it is also important to follow the different steps thoroughly in order to attain success upon the evaluation of progress and performance. There are so many reasons why it fails.
Strategic planning is central to management study. It defines the long term direction for the company and all other business functions orbit around their established strategies. This article studies how a company formulates business-level strategies, optimize their competitive positioning and obtain a competitive advantage over their rivals.
R.L Fielding (2008) reiterates that Business Intelligence is a thorough and holistic analysis of the company records, data, information, and software application for effective decision making. All decision making processes need an organized, readily-accessible, and human readable compilations of data. With the use of an effective tool the firm can easily figure out their own business processes, the behavior of their customers, and the economic trend of the industry. With these facts, the firm can arrive at a better strategy to achieve their specified goals with confidence.
Business intelligence (BI) and business analytics (BA) (sometimes used interchangeably) has revolutionized the way businesses use data and can be contrasted, for the purpose of this essay, in the following way: BI is raw data that has been transformed into meaningful information that provides historical, current, and predictive views of business operations and environment, and BA uses data and statistical methods to provide actionable information for decision makers. BI explains what is happening, identifies the issue, and provides decisions to be made and BA explains why an issue is occurring, what will occur, and what actions need to be taken. At the forefront of BI/BA technology is International Business Machines (IBM) with a very broad array of related products and services. Among the more popular products are its flagship analytics product IBM Cognos and its Predictive Customer Analytics. IBM’s Cognos Analytics allows business and IT professionals to prepare and distribute all types of business reports from all departments with an organization and access pertinent information such as financial reports, sales trends, production yields, and inventory on any device on an hourly basis. IBM also offers a Predictive Customer Intelligence solution, an integrated software which uses automation to acquire customer information such as buying behavior, web activity, and social media presence to model and “score” costumer behavior and provide customized actions so that a business
Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions. BI applications include the activities of decision support systems[->0], query[->1]and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP[->2]), statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining[->3].
Strategic Planning is one of the most fundamental factors in the success of an organization. This research project will discuss the importance of strategic planning as well as the different components of strategic planning. Many organizations fail to accomplish their goals and tasks due to the lacking of strategic planning. In order for their businesses to be successful, organizations need to be well informed about how the strategic planning process works.