Strategic business-IT alignment of application software packages: bridging the information technology gap

An application software package implementation is a complex endeavour, and as such it requires the proper understanding, evaluation and redefining of the current business processes of an organisation to ensure that the implementation delivers on the objectives set at the start of the project. Numerous factors exist that may contribute to the unsuccessful implementation of application software packages. However, the most significant contributor to the failure of an application software package implementation lies in the misalignment of the organisation’s business processes with the end functionality of the application software package implemented. Misalignment is attributed to a gap that exists between the business processes of an organisation and the functionality the application software package has to offer to translate the business processes of an organisation into digital form when implementing and configuring an application software package. This gap is commonly referred to as the information technology (IT) gap. Based on an extensive literature study, this article proposes to define and discuss the IT gap that specifically exists between the business processes of an organisation and application software packages acquired from a software supplier. Furthermore, this article makes recommendations for aligning the business processes of an organisation with the functionality of the application software package implemented. The end result of adopting these recommendations will be more successful application software package implementations for organisations. CATEGORIES AND SUBJECT DESCRIPTORS K6.1 [Management of computing and information systems]: Project and people management – strategic information systems planning K6.3 [Management of computing and information systems]: Software management – software selection