Aligning IT Strategy to Business Strategy in a Multi-Business Company

Aligning IT to business needs is still one of the most important challenges for many organizations. In a recent survey amongst European IT managers, 78% indicate that their IT is not aligned with business strategy. Another recent survey shows similar results. The message of Business & IT Alignment is logical and undisputed. But if this message is so clear, how can practice be so difficult? To explore the issues with and approaches to BITA in practice, a focused group discussion was organized with IT managers and CIOs of medium sized and large organizations in the Netherlands. In total 23 participants from trade, manufacturing and financial companies joined the discussions. This paper explores the practice of Business & IT Alignment in mult-business-companies. The parenting theory for the role of the corporate center is used to explain the different practical approaches that the participants in the focused groups took.