Managing the it Alignment Gap in Turbulent Times — An Inside View

Abstract

In this paper the CIO of a large shipping company describes the challenge of IT-alignment in turbulent years from 2004 to 2010. Our research questions are; how should the CIO relate to a dynamic alignment gap where the business environments are turbulent. How should the CIO understand and manage the IT alignment gap when there is a difference between the espoused and real business strategy? Our framework addresses the interplay of business strategy and IT alignment in four generic types. Through our longitudinal case we show how the framework allows for a deeper analysis of some fundamental challenges for the CIO in turbulent times. We argue that the CIO never should take the business strategy for granted, and we discuss implications for future research. We also present practical implications for the CIO, and a set of recommendations for business management on how to close the gap.

• IT business alignment
• business strategy
• case study
• dynamic alignment gap

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Henning Denstad

Henning Denstad is Senior Advisor at the consultancy company A-2 Norway AS servicing customers in private and public sector. His key qualifications are IT management, IT strategy development and implementation, and program management. He was Senior Vice President IT / CIO for a period of 12 years at Siemens Scandinavia and a global shipping group. He is Master of Science from NTNU and has a Business Administration degree from BI Norwegian Business School. He has published two business novels on creating business value from IT.

Bendik Bygstad

Bendik Bygstad is Professor of Information Systems at the Norwegian School of Information Technology, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Oslo. His main research interests are IT-based service innovation and the relationship of IS and organizational change, and IS research methods. He has published articles in journals such as Information Systems Journal, Journal of Information Technology and International Journal of Project Management.