Alignment of Business and IT Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Alignment of Business and IT Strategy - Essay Example However, it is yet to be determined that alignment issues exist, and if they do how to control for these gaps. The results showed that to enhance business strategy there must be a focus on the organizational vision and improvement of communication of business strategy and vision. The alignment of the two organizational elements, were concluded to be directly affected by the coherence of a business department. Overall, it was recommended that a robust business architecture be developed, and that the organization create a separate and centralized IT department. During the past three decades IT ahs become essential to business operations. Initially IT was distributed over departments; decentralized; specialized; and limited in application. However, the authors do not provide insights as to why IT "increased and spread"; only examples of how. A common solution in the past was to have a separate IT department; however this was found to limit effective communication between IT department and other departments. The suggestion of IT departments reporting directly to management can create internal "politics". Management often prioritizes the issues and this can lead to resentment of IT staff by the end users in other parts of the organization. The isolation of IT strategy can also draw a significant amount of resources away from the overall business strategy. As a consequence, non-alignment increases costs in time, money and organizational harmony. 3.0 Literature Review Since the early 1980s alignment of IT and business strategy has been realized as a critical need. The primary inhibitors identified over time have included; the IT department not prioritizing efficiently; and IT management lacking leadership. Models have been developed such as; 1) Strategic Integration Systems Planning (SISP); and 2) strategic integration across the entire organization. Solutions to date for effective alignment are; 1) communication and understanding; 2) business ownership and accountability for return on IT investments; 3) rapid strategy development driven by climatic business changes; and 4) enhance the internal competencies of the business. 4.0 Method The method used to include the Alignment of Business and IT (ABIT) department of the Fortune 50 company to aid in the coordination of the project. The ABIT department created a list of potential employees who were considered to have a "balanced perspective". This is a limitation isn't that a random sample was not selected, and so the results cannot be generalized to other organizations, as the sample is not representative of the wider population. Instead, selection criteria could have been used to operationalize what a "balanced perspective" was. Three groups were created; 1) one having a business perspective; 2) one having an IT perspective; and 3) one having a "balanced" perspective. However, a pre-test could have been done first to identify a priori knowledge and to place people in groups based on their current knowledge.The questions for the interviews were developed with the aid of ABIT to identify gaps, however no information is given as to how these items were selected and if they were tested for their reliability and validity. Each group was interviewed with questions

The Road Not Taken Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Road Not Taken - Essay Example The prominent literary movement that can be observed within the poem is iambic tetrameter with four stressed syllables present per line. This poem has two more distinctions – one that it is considered by many as Frost’s most popular work and two that this poem is considered very tricky by Frost himself. (Grimes, 2006) There is controversy to whether the poem in question was directed more at the poet’s life than at someone else. One of Frost’s own statements from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference of 1953 provides great insight (Ballantine, 2003): "One stanza of 'The Road Not Taken' was written while I was sitting on a sofa in the middle of England: Was found three or four years later, and I couldn't bear not to finish it. I wasn't thinking about myself there, but about a friend who had gone off to war, a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other. He was hard on himself that way." The reference to the friend here is fe llow poet Edward Thomas. The poet and Thomas used to take long walks together through a forest. After each walk, the poet noticed that Thomas regretted not having taken the path that they did not take. Thomas would relate that they might have missed quite some things on the path that they did not travel on. ... The poet lived a life filled with grief and misery to a large extent but it must be noted that these problems could not dissuade Frost from displaying his true genius as a poet. The poem will provide a glimpse of this as we go along the explication. Moreover, some of the core beliefs that the poet held throughout life will be seen reflecting prominently from this poem. Perhaps, none is more apparent than Frost’s statement: â€Å"I have discovered three words about life – it goes on.† The poem starts out with the first verse relating the splitting of paths. The paths â€Å"diverged in a yellow wood†. Using these words, the poet expresses two distinct things. One thing is that the path that the author was travelling on has come to a crossroads. Secondly, the poet has come to a â€Å"yellow wood† that signifies the onset of autumn when the New England countryside turns yellow. The poet spent a great deal of his life is New England and was known for his affiliation to rustic countryside scenes. His use of vivid imagery to transmit social and personal phenomenon is nothing new therefore the use of the term â€Å"yellow wood† signifies the author standing at a cross roads having a difficult decision to execute. One literary device in use over here is the antithesis whereby the author is torn between which paths to take. The poet moves into the second verse by indicating that he feels sad at not being able to travel both paths being offered. Here the poet can be seen to be tugging his friend Edward Thomas’ line of thinking. Thomas held every single time that he missed out on the path that he did not travel on. Similarly, the poet wants to travel both paths simultaneously so that he does not miss out on anything