Title: A framework for integrating IT governance and business/IT alignment principles

Authors: Wesley In Der Maur, Wouter Van Walbeek, Ronald Batenburg

Addresses: Atos Consulting NV, PO Box 52012, 3502 JB Utrecht, The Netherlands. ' Atos Consulting NV, PO Box 52012, 3502 JB Utrecht, The Netherlands. ' Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, PO Box 80089, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands

Abstract: Highly information-intensive organisations such as retail banks continuously struggle with the key issues of controlling their IT-value and achieving business-IT alignment. One main reason might be that decision makers in retail banks do not use methods to plan or improve their business-IT alignment. This study provides such a method, combining principles of two well known concepts: IT governance and strategic alignment. The developed framework provides an allocation scheme for dividing strategic IT decisions between the business and IT domain by describing practical concepts to tackle the business-IT alignment enigma. The framework is validated by interviewing a number of experts from Dutch retail banks that are strongly challenged to optimise their IT value through business-IT alignment. The validation study largely supports the applicability of the framework. Furthermore, this study provides a window of opportunities to apply it to other industries, countries or specific IS/IT applications.

Keywords: business-IT alignment; framework; IT governance; retail banks; information technology; The Netherlands.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2009.027177

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2009 Vol.3 No.5, pp.555 - 573

Published online: 17 Jul 2009 *

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