Aligned Business and Organizational Strategies
Aligned Business and Organizational Strategies
This chapter makes the case for general managers’ full participation in strategic business decisions concerning IS. It out- lines the skills required for such participation, and it makes explicit certain key assumptions about the nature of business, management, and IS that will underlie the remaining discussions. Subsequent chapters are designed to build on these concepts by addressing the following questions.
Frameworks and Foundations
• How should information strategy be aligned with business and organizational strategies? (Chapter 1)
• How can a business achieve competitive advantages using its IS? (Chapter 2)
• How do organizational decisions impact IS decisions? (Chapter 3)
• How is the work of the individual in an organization affected by decisions concerning IS? (Chapter 4)
• How are information systems integrated with business processes? (Chapter 5)
IS Management Issues
• What are the components of an IS architecture? (Chapter 6)
• How are IS kept secure? (Chapter 7)
• How is the IT organization managed and funded? (Chapter 8)
• How are IS decisions made? (Chapter 9)
• What source should provide IS services and how and where should they be provided? (Chapter 10)
15 Jared Newman, “Right Now, the Internet of Things Is Like the Internet of the 1990s,” Fast Company (March 27, 2015I, http://www.fastcompany. com/3044375/sector‐forecasting/the‐future‐of‐the‐internet‐of‐things‐is‐like‐the‐internet‐of‐the‐1990s (last accessed May 26, 2015).
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16 Introduction
• How are IS projects managed and risks from change management mitigated? (Chapter 11)
• How is business intelligence managed within an organization? (Chapter 12)
• What ethical and moral considerations bind the uses of information in business? (Chapter 13)
K E Y T E R M S architecture (p. 14) data (p. 10) digital natives (p. 4) information (p. 11) information system (p. 14) information technology (p. 14)
infrastructure (p. 14) internet of things (p. 13) knowledge (p. 12) mashup (p. 11) social business (p. 15) social IT (p. 15)
social media (p. 15) social networking (p. 15) Web 2.0 (p. 3) wisdom (p. 12)
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17 1 chapter The Information Systems
Strategy Triangle
In February 2015, 1 health care giant Kaiser Permanente named Dick Daniels to the CIO position and the leadership team for the next stage of the company ’ s business strategy: to provide better health care at lower costs. To achieve those goals, Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation ’ s largest not‐for‐profi t health care systems with over 9.5 million members and 2014 operating revenue of $56.4 billion, invested in numerous information systems projects aimed at streamlining operations, offering new services, and meeting government obligations. For example, in 2014, 13% of all the medical appoint- ments were fulfi lled digitally—through e‐mail—to the delight of patients who did not have to make a trip to the doctor ’ s offi ce and to the delight of doctors who were able to check in on their patients, particularly those with chronic conditions, more frequently. Doctors particularly liked this because their annual bonuses were based, in part, on improvements in patient health metrics such as lower blood pressure, reduced blood sugar levels if at risk for diabetes, and improvement in cholesterol scores rather than on the number of tests they ordered or the total billing they brought in. The organi- zation invested heavily in video conferencing technology, mobile apps, and analytics as they fi nished implementing a $4 billion electronic health records system, KP HealthConnect.
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