Strategic IT Alignment in Service Sector

Abstract

Effective management and governance is key to the business and information technology alignment. Just as business organisations have to be responsive to the changes in their operating environment to remain competitive, they also have to be proactive in leveraging technological resources to sense these changes and take appropriate strategic and operational decisions. Governance of information technologies is not the job of technology administrators; in fact, it is everybody's responsibility. With this recognition and understanding, technology stakeholders are able to assume responsibilities and accountabilities to execute and achieve desirable behaviour in the use of information technologies. This paper presents a case study of a bank in Thailand on how it has embedded governance practices in its social, operational, structural, and technical environment. It concludes that maximization of value from information technologies is dependent upon the technical, cultural, and organisational endorsement of business practices relating to their governance.