Applying the strategic alignment model to business and ICT strategies of Singapore's small and medium‐sized architecture, engineering and construction enterprises

Abstract

The concept of strategic alignment advocates that decisions on business strategy, information and communication technology (ICT) strategy, business infrastructure and ICT infrastructure need to be coordinated in order to better realize the benefits from ICT investments. In Singapore, there is a 10‐year plan presented by the government to transform the sector of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), and ICT is identified as an area for SMEs to acquire new capabilities. In this context, the strategic alignment framework is used to evaluate Singapore's small and medium‐sized architecture, engineering and construction enterprises on their current practices in the ICT domain. An industry‐wide postal survey, adopting the IT Barometer questionnaire and applying stratified sampling, obtained 84 responses out of a total of 754 companies contacted. Of the 84, 67 responses were further stratified by size and annual turnover, according to the SMEs definition, to allow a closer examination of each strata or class. Both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis are used, and the main findings of the research are: (1) targeted schemes need to be set up to address the specific needs and concerns of the micro and small enterprises as distinct from those of the medium‐sized enterprises pertaining to building ICT capability; (2) the two common alignment perspectives adopted by the larger ‘designer’ and ‘builder’ SMEs are ‘strategy execution’ and ‘competitive potential’; and (3) the medium‐sized ‘designer’ and ‘builder’ enterprises are shown to favour technology leadership and customer satisfaction, respectively, as their niche performance criteria for the strategic use of ICTs.

Keywords:

• Business strategy
• information and communication technology strategy
• strategic alignment
• small and medium‐sized enterprises
• Singapore construction industry

Acknowledgements

The Singapore IT Barometer 2003 Survey was wholly funded by the National University of Singapore under a completed research project. The author wishes to thank her anonymous referees for their constructive comments on an earlier version of the paper.