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    IT Business Alignment: Bridging the Gap Between Technology and Business Strategy

    Companies today have the challenging task of seamlessly integrating technology and business into their operations. Business information technology is integral in business improvement and reaching business goals. Managing business technology, learning how to improve business with new technology, and the technology development process can make or break a company.

    But even more important is business technology management.

    It’s not always easy to marry the business office technology you deal with every day with general business requirements such as effective communication skills, management skills, and business risk. Leaders today need to understand business technology management, recognize barriers to effective communication when explaining business IT solutions, and possess project management skills.

    In this strategic course, not only will you learn about information technology business management, but also how technology in business can assist with business goals and objectives.

    Enroll in this course if you are:

    • An IT manager or director involved with new enterprise IT initiatives
    • An IT professional charged with increasing the effectiveness of existing technologies and processes
    • A technologist who would like to hone your business analysis and strategy skills to better collaborate with the other functional groups of the organization

    In today’s business climate, everyone understands the need to shorten the time to act on business opportunities or react from industry threats. IT is a critical tool to help support business strategy. Unfortunately, IT investment and implementation isn’t always aligned with the business needs. Participants completing this course will have the tools and knowledge needed to prevent misalignment and achieve measurable business benefit.

    You will learn to:

    • Demystify IT to executives and stakeholders and show its value to the business model and strategic objectives
    • Understand project portfolio analysis and determine the IT initiatives that need the greatest focus and resources
    • Be able to better use technology to increase revenues, productivity and efficiency
    • Identify tools that help diagnose IT misalignment and learn how to use them to remedy problems
    • Maximize asset utilization and extract every dollar from enterprise systems
    • Develop people to ask the right questions about IT and business strategy

    Topics covered include:

    • The state of IT and business strategy
    • Causes of good and bad IT alignment
    • Maximizing IT human capital
    • Using IT in business process improvement: increasing efficiency and decreasing costs
    • Using IT in new product or process development: increasing revenues, customer base and productivity

    The top three management concerns for IT

    What is IT non-alignment

    • Understanding the drivers that cause non-alignment
    • Spotting non-alignment within the organization
    • The three foundations needed prior to working on IT alignment

    The four business results of proper IT alignment

    The income statement model for IT alignment

    Intrinsic value vs. business value of IT

    • Technology capability planning
    • Measuring derived business results
    • Value of proper execution

    The three primary variables in any technology investment decision

    Framing techniques needed for technology investment to business leaders

    Benefits and traps of common tools used to create better IT alignment

    • Portfolio management
    • Cost benefit analysis
    • Project management and governance
    • IT cost management
    • Continuous improvement
    • Operational execution

    The six non-technical skills every IT work group needs to develop

    Case analysis: IT alignment through revenue generation

    • Business intelligence
    • Sales force automation
    • Customer relationship management
    • Image processing
    • Content management
    • Call center optimization
    • Customer payment systems

    Case analysis: IT alignment through cost containment

    • Business process improvement
    • Data warehousing
    • Activity-based costing
    • Web services
    • Service-oriented architecture
    • ERP or other package software

    Action planning back at the office

    Additional resources for technology management and strategy

    Steve Weber is vice president and executive partner for Gartner Executive Programs (EXP). In this role, he provides direction, mentoring, and customized support to chief information officers, helping them manage IT challenges and initiatives. Before joining Gartner, Weber was the senior VP and CIO for One America Financial Partners and Aid Association for Lutherans (now Thrivent), a financial services organization. He has personally mentored over 50 IT and business leaders.