Effective Management of Information Technology - Closing the Strategic Divide!

A stud y to determine whether there are any significant difTerences in perspectives of IT and business managers wit h regard to the factors which contribute to successfu l strategic ali gnment using Henderson and venkatraman's strategic ali gnment model as the research framework has been rcported .. A general survey was undertaken over a range of industrics and resu lt s indicate th at the two perspectives were largely equ ivalent except for their overall perception of the factors whi ch contributed to success in strategic align ment. However, deta il ed case studies on three cont ainer terminal operators showed very different patterns of al ignment which suggest that successful alignment of IT in industries which are hi ghl y IT dependent wou ld require very different perspecti ves from both IT and business managers although these perspecti ves were sti ll convergent within the organi sat ion.