Lecture 3 - The Strategic Framework and BPR for e-Business

Source:
1. The Use Of Strategic Tools by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: An Australasian Study" (F. A. Frost, 2003)

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Reflection
Lecture 3 mainly talks about strategic framework. The important role of IS/IT in business process reengineering(BPR) is mainly identified in the stages, "Develop options for radical change", "Evalustion of options" and "Implementation of chosen options" . The main strategic framework suggested are PEST analysis and SWOT analysis.

In my opinion, these two analysis are the fundamental analysis for IS/IT strategy which can outline the business environment and problems in external and internal prospectives. This can fully understand the business environment and the firm's position in the market, and carry out appropriate IS strategy to reshape the business.

To support my view, we will come across a real life example. According to "The Use Of Strategic Tools by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: An Australasian Study" (F. A. Frost, 2003) in the journal "Strategic Change", it introduced different stategic tools (Refer to Figure 1) and focus on the study of strategic planning tool usage by the SMEs in Western Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

A strategic management framework is provided to identify six stages with a range of tasks, so that the studied SMEs can follow the same and concrete framework.

Stage 1: Current direction (Where are we going?)
Stage 2: Strategic aduit (Where are we now?)
Stage 3: Environmental analysis (External operating environment)
Stage 4: Environment (Macro)
Stage 5: Strategic analysis
Stage 6: Strategic implementation and control

Figure 1

Figure 2

Refer to Figure 2, the study concluded that the four most used tools are SWOT, PEST, Financial Ratio Analysis and Budgeting. The range of tools used was narrow, concentrating on budget-related tasks, SWOT and PEST. Besides, there was a significant difference in terms of range and depth between Australia and Singarore comparing with Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Week 4 – The Strategic Alignment Model

Reflection
Nowadays, we could not live without IT, and so the business world. The appropriate adoption of the business strategy and IS strategy directly affect the success of a business. However, the more important thing is their consistency, whether the business and IS strategy can be integrated in order to improve the overall performance of the organization. This is what meant by "Strategic Alignment".

SAM (Strategic Alignment Model) defines external and internal domains in terms of strategy infrastructure respectively. The external and internal domains can be categorized into business and IT functions. This generates 4 domains called Business Strategy, IT Strategy, Business Infrastructure and IT Infrastructure.

Though the 4 domains are clearly divided according to the componenets they included, the domains are indeed closely related by the implementation of strategic alignment. There are mainly 4 alignment perspectives, namely Strategy Execution, Technology Transformation, Service Level and Competitve Potential.



Subject:
In Lect 4 - Which alignment strategy in SAM model is the best? and why?

SAM composes of four quadrants that consist of three components each. In the business area the two quadrants are business strategy and organizational infrastructure. The components that make up business strategy are business scope, distinctive competencies, and business governance. Business scope refers to everything that might effect the business environment. 


The first quadrant involving the information technology area is information technology strategy. This quadrant consists of the technology scope, systematic competencies, and information technology governance components.The last quadrant in the strategic alignment model is the information technology infrastructure. The components here are architecture, processes, and skills.

As mentioned before, there are four strategic alignment perspectives, namely, strategy execution, technology transformation, service level and competitive potential. 


In my opinion, service level alignment is the best strategy. It is bacause SAM highlights the importance of IT-based service options. Service providers are using IT to reduce costs and create value-added services for their customers. It proposes a service quality model that links customer perceived IT-based service options to traditional service dimensions. The model attempts to investigate the relationship between IT-based services and customers’ perceptions of service quality. 

One of the example is banks introducing e-banking, which could encourage customers to make transactions through Internet. Service quality is increased as customers do not need to queue up for long time. Moreover, with the use of e-banking, the number of staff could be reduced and thus save the wages cost. This could ensure the effective use of resources.



Reference:
1.STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT:ANALYSIS OF PERSPECTIVES
    http://sais.aisnet.org/2006/Coleman-SAIS2006-paper.pdf