Template:SFR:Today's Featured Article1/2013
From Wikireedia
Frameworks used to develop an SME’s IT strategy
Abstract
At the beginning of this analysis the aim is:
“Developing an IT strategy to align the business strategy to the IT technology to gain and sustain a competitive advantage ”.
In writing a critical appraisal of developing an IT strategy we should start by justifying why an IT strategy for an SME is needed. A good place to start is Earl’s nine reasons why a company should have an IT strategy
- 1. IT involves high costs.
- 2. IT is critical to the success of many organisations.
- 3. IT is now used as part of the commercial strategy in the battle for competitive advantage.
- 4. IT is required by the economic context
- 5. IT affects all levels of management.
- 6. IT has meant a revolution in the way information is created and presented to management.
- 7. IT involves many stakeholders, not just management, and not just within the organisation.
- 8. The detailed technical issues in IT are important.
- 9. IT requires effective management, as this can make a real difference to successful IT use.
The failure of an SME to have an IT Strategy may result in:
- a. Competitors, suppliers and customers gaining advantage.
- b. Company objectives becoming unachievable due to systems limitations.
- c. Systems are not integrated thus causing duplication of effort, inaccuracy, delays and poor quality management information.
- d. Systems’ implementations are late, over cost and fail to deliver expected benefits.
- e. No means exist to establish appropriate IS/IT resource levels, to evaluate investments and set priorities.
In this critical review of the frameworks and models used to develop the IT we should describe
- The usefulness or otherwise of the models that were used to develop the Strategy and to want extent the models can aid the analysis to avoid the failures outlined above.
- Additional frameworks that may have helped the analysis.
- Support for the premise that models and frameworks can be used to develop IT strategies for SME.
- How effectively were the frameworks and model used by the group.
