Cutter Consortium

BUSINESS-IT ALIGNMENT -- A TURN FOR THE BETTER

18 September 2001

According to Cutter Consortium, business-IT alignment is better than ever!

A recent Cutter Consortium study of 253 large IT organizations, conducted as part of Cutter's Business-IT Strategies Advisory Service, found that the majority of those doing e-business have a good to excellent alignment between their e-business and IT strategies.

How well aligned are your e-business and IT strategies? 

Completely aligned      28%
Moderately aligned      24%
Somewhat aligned        19%
Somewhat unaligned      14%
Moderately unaligned    10%
Completely unaligned    5%
[Source: Cutter Consortium]

"These results stand in stark contrast to how alignment is usually rated -- business-IT alignment is typically the number one problem facing IT (as we reported just last year in Cutter's e-Business: Trends, Strategies, and Technologies report)," says Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Chris Pickering. Pickering authored last year's e-business report and the recently published Survey of E-Business and IT Practices.

The most significant factor encouraging alignment is that e-projects are generally sponsored by business.

Who sponsored your company's e-business initiative? 

CEO/COO                   34%
IT                        24%
Business Operating Unit   19%
Marketing/Sales           15%
Other                      8%
[Source: Cutter Consortium]

"CEOs, COOs, marketing, business operating units, and other non-IT departments sponsored 76% of the e-projects among survey respondents," concludes Pickering. "Frequently, sponsorship means funding, too. Both of these factors promote business ownership of e-projects, keeping the business more interested in project results and more involved in project execution."

--Cutter Consortium

[These statistics were taken from Cutter Consortium's Business-IT Strategies Service. For more information, please contact Dennis Crowley at +1 781 641 5125 or +1 800 964 5125 or e-mail dcrowley@cutter.com or visit http://www.cutter.com/consortium/index_bit.html.]



Business-IT Alignment -- A Turn for the Better