The foundations of IT strategy
Jonny Holmström
Web: jonnyholmstrom.com
Email: jonny.holmstrom@informatik.umu.se
Twitter: jonnyholmstrom
Outline
Mintzberg again
Galliers & Leidner
Early assumptions about IT strategy
Assumptions change…
Peppard et al (2014)
Ad hoc
IS planning
SISP
Building an IS capability
IS Strategizing
Remember Mintzberg’s view of
Strategy?
Source:H. Mintzberg and J. A. Waters, “Of Strategies, Deliberate and
Emergent,” Strategic Management Journal 6 (1985), pp. 257-72.
Galliers & Leidner: Strategic
Information Management

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IT management must not only be
sensitive to the phase of a
technology, but also its impact on
the organization
As technology, environment and
organization change, so too must
the priorities which organizations
give to their IS portfolios.
The strategic impact of IS/IT on
an organization will vary over
time
The early assumptions on IT
strategy

The strategic alignment model (Henderson
& Venkatraman, 1993)
 Assumes that linkages/alignments between
key components must be in place
Assumptions change over time…
1950s
1980s
2000s
Practice and technology becomes
increasingly complex
IT strategies in organizations (Peppard et al.,
2014)
Ad hoc bottom-up approach to
determining IS

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Praxis: Ad hoc approach to determining EDP and
computing requirements
Practitioners: IT staffs
Practices: Most emphasis on building systems rather than
determining strategy. Illustrative tools: Systems
development methodologies
Description: Ad hoc, bottom up, primarily driven by
technology requirements. IS plan operational in focus, for
the most part identifying individual applications (cf Galliers
and Sutherland, 1991)
IS planning

Praxis: Top down approach to determining IS needs to meet
business goals. Shared group understanding of a few key
individuals (Ciborra, 1994)
 Practitioners: IT staffs
 Practices: Planning based on an informal network of a few
key individuals (Pyburn, 1983; Earl, 1993)
Illustrative tools: IBM Business Systems Planning
Andersen Consulting Method 1 Critical success factors
(Rockart, 1979)
 Description: Formal top down planning for IS. IS plans
reactive to business plans. Aligning to business goals
(Kriebel, 1968; Zani, 1970; McFarlan, 1971; King and
Cleland, 1975; Zachman, 1978; King, 1978)
Strategic planning for
information systems

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Praxis: Team approach (Mentzas, 1997). Involving multiple
stakeholders (Earl, 1993). Importance of feedback in
assessing IS planning effectiveness (Baker, 1995)
Practitioners: IS strategy promoted as a business
management issue (Earl, 1989). Senior management and IT
staffs
Practices: Focus on themes (Earl, 1993). IS plans
periodically reviewed to adapt to changing circumstances
(Earl, 1993). Illustrative tools: Customer resource lifecycle,
Strategic thrust analysis, Five forces analysis, etc
Description: Proactively seeking opportunities for
competitive advantage from IT (McFarlan, 1984; Porter and
Millar, 1985; Earl, 1989)
Building an IS capability

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Praxis: IS capability embedded in fabric of the organization
Practitioners: All employees
Practices: Influenced by organizational culture; and
information orientation of organization (Marchand et al.,
2000)
Description: Acknowledging that having a strategy is only
part of what is required. Ability to continually identify
opportunities, deploy technology, implement change and
use information and IT (Peppard and Ward, 2004)
IS strategizing
Praxis: Cognitive and intellectual dimensions. ‘‘The most
important direct predictor of alignment in this study was a
high level of communication between IT and business
executives’’ (Reich and Benbasat, 2000)
 Practitioners: All employees
 Practices: Co-evolution of business and IT strategies
(Benbya and McKelvey, 2006; Breu and Peppard, 2003)
 Description: IS strategy something that organizations do
rather than have. Integrating IS considerations into the
discourse on business and knowledge strategy (Galliers,
2011). Functional strategies having a digital component;
fusion of IS and business strategies – the digital strategy
(Bharadwaj et al., 2013)
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Summary

IT strategy has become a key concern for
today’s organizations
 The role and meaning of IT strategy
depends heavily on the role and meaning of
the character of IT
 There are several distinct approaches to IT
strategy – a firm must make informed
decisions regarding what approach to pick