What is BITA?

You realize that you need to make a decision regarding your existing technology, but you are not sure what the next step is. Should you look at an entirely new system to make your business more effective, or can you re-architect your existing system? Perhaps you need to integrate a Web-based solution or you require consistent access to your operational data (i.e. "Business Intelligence"), that is backed by a dynamic data warehouse? Or, are your needs revolving around B2B, platform migration, or globalizing your applications? What do you need to do to get started in developing and deploying a technology strategy that will strengthen and grow your business?

You should be provided insight into identifying areas that help or hinder business-IT alignment. Alignment focuses on the activities that management performs to achieve cohesive goals across the organization.

The common, "traditional" view interprets business-IT alignment in terms of prioritizing IT projects to support the priorities outlined by an organization's senior management. A much-expanded view introduces the concept as a set of relationships among strategies and structures.

Regardless of your current position on the business-IT alignment spectrum, you can use a strategic alignment model as a tool to structure your thinking about relationships between business and IT. The model can help you develop views of your organization's strengths and weaknesses and focus on the functional integration of strategies and structures.