Business strategy is the foundation of a successful business1. The current economic decline has had shuttering consequences; its inevitable that it will affect the various industries that the SMEs are part in the near future. The potential returns in IS/IT is not been realized because of previous attempts on improving the strategy, but failing at doing so. Success in IS/IT is concerned with maximising the return of money invested, and processing and using information within to gain competitive advantage against competitors.2 Emerging of IT has changed Business scope immensely, today's and also future Business processes are united with IT, compare to previous business model which the It were based on back offices3.
On many occasions companies make the mistake of focusing their efforts only on members of staff who have direct contact with customers. This strategy in most occasions has failed in a long run.4
Strategy is an important mile stone for the business to take strategic action. Strategy involves three interrelated process, first of strategic thinking, strategic planning, and opportunistic decision making. We should not confuse the two terms like strategy and planning. Strategy is dissimilar to planning, strategy is an integrated set of actions aimed at increasing the long term well being and strength of the enterprise relative to the company5.
The importance of a system has been outlined by Jason Jennings in an informal approach, with the following quote;
"You can't improve a process until you have a system. And any business without systems where everybody is free to do their own thing is little more than an insane asylum run by the inmate."6
There are number of ways of executing IS/IT strategies into a business, one of which by applying BCCD. According to the academic staff in university of Hertfordshire, The BCCD strategy is a completed work by the University of Hertfordshire team. However, it's debatable to use such a method, which has no national or international recognition in academic or industrial setting. However this report will look into ways of developing an IS/IT strategy for a particular business, and compare the other strategies, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using BCCD. The conclusion will expose whether BCCD is an ideal tool to complete a particular task.
Business Critical Computing Decisions (BCCD) is intend to deliver integrated business and IS/IT strategies, especially for small to medium enterprises.
BCCD investigates the business process in various ways. It analyses businesses' current information and communication flow. And looks into ways to increase productivity, save time and reduce costs. Structural approaches are identified such as setting goals, aims and objectives. Critical success factors are distinguished, and necessary processes are outlined, as well as prioritising the projects to support important and insignificant processes. BCCD is structured in a way that it combines academic information and practical procedures to construct an IS/IT strategy.
BCCD has set of steps that it follows, and it's comprised of 7 steps. These steps include from setting aims and objectives to organising workshop, working out business direction, categorising the priorities in business processes, identifying the projects to be improved, construct IS/IT strategy, and finally reassessing the completed tasks.
BCCD Strategy development focuses on broad aspects of implementing a computerized system into a given business, and in addition to that, it scrutinizes the general surroundings from political environment to various political, social and economical aspects.
The following section will look into the pros and cons of BCCD.
Advantages of BCCD
Identifying the IS/IT flow within the company in depth
Identifying organisational needs and requirements
Minimise the long term costs
Competitive advantage
Disadvantages of BCCD
Expensive procedure to install
Reluctance and inability of the employees to adjust to new system
System breakdown on initial stages from beginning
There are other IS/IT strategy methods also, one of which called the Strategic Alignment Model, by J. C. Henderson and H. Venkatraman7. This model has four fundamental domain of strategic choice and these are including;
Business strategy
Information technology strategy
Organisational infrastructure and
Processes8.
The other strategy method which had been driven from BCCD is the PQM (Process Quality Management). PQM is widely recognised method compared to BCCD. Like the BCCD other methodologies are also supporting the theory that the IS/IT Strategy must align with business strategy.9
Looking at these methods, I have came to realisation that the other IS/IT Strategy methodologies does not cover as much aspects of the business and surroundings as it does with BCCD methodology.
Although BCCD has no recognition amongst academic institutions or in IT industrial trade, the BCCD covers vast areas of business process and IT alignments. I believe that with BCCD, the SMEs can benefit significantly with IS/IT strategic methods over the years, with the rise of IS/IT in business management. In addition to that, if BCCD methodology was introduced to the experience IT professionals in the industry, I believe that it will be accepted to be used by the industry, thus BCCD can be developed and improved for the use in larger organisations. The BCCD methodology can be applied to many businesses of industry which requires IS/IT Support. As I have mentioned earlier in my report, with the emergence of the economic crisis, the businesses will move into ways to reduce their costs, and increase productivity. With the BCCD strategic approach, businesses will have the opportunity to analyse their current processes and identify areas that needs to be rectified and take the necessary action.
References:
1-Thinkin Managers (http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/business-management/business-strategy.php)
2-First paragraph, section 2, Strategic planning for information Systems Third edition, Ward and Peppard (2002).
3- Thinking Managers (http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/management/development-strategy.php)
4 Emerging IT / Business Models (http://misrc.umn.edu/seminars/slides/2003/02072003_Seminar_Slides.pdf)
5-second and third paragraph, section 2, Strategic planning for information Systems Third edition, Ward and Peppard (2002).
6- (Paragraph 3, the book 'less is more', authored by Jason Jennings, page 128)
7- Strategic alignment: Leveraging information technology for transforming organizations
(http://domino.watson.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf/d9f0a910ab8b637485256bc80066a393/46f0665239f9de6285256bfa00685e03?OpenDocument) Authors J. C. Henderson, H. Venkatraman
8- The Article, (http://domino.watson.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf/d9f0a910ab8b637485256bc80066a393/46f0665239f9de6285256bfa00685e03?OpenDocument)
9-(Amanda Jefferies, SISPM Lecturer)
(This diagram illustrates the IS/IT alignment from IBM IT Governance Approach: Business Performance through IT Execution)
