Business & IT Alignment in Theory and Practice

A key success factor for a successful company in a dynamic environment is effective and efficient information technology (IT) supporting business strategies and processes. In recent surveys however it is concluded that in most companies IT is not aligned with business strategy. The alignment between business needs and IT capabilities is therefore still a prominent area of concern. This paper reports the first stages of a research program exploring the differences of business & IT alignment (BIA) in theory and in practice. The paper presents an overview of the development of theory on BIA and reports the issues with aligning IT to business in practice based on a number of focus-group discussions with CIOs and IT managers. In line with the practical approach to BIA that the CIOs and IT managers in the focus-groups took, the last part of the paper builds upon Luftman's BIA maturity model and reports the application of the model to 12 Dutch firms