An AHP-based Decision Making Framework for IT Service Design

Information Technology services are increasingly becoming integrated components of business operations and end-to-end business services. As key enablers of competitive business advantage, greater demands are now placed on designing information technology services that align closely with strategic business needs. Many business goals have similar objectives but through strategic and tactical planning, those goals can have dissimilar or conflicting priorities. IT services need to be designed to include features aimed at satisfying the majority of business needs thus optimizing business value and providing the maximum competitive advantage. In this paper, we present a analytic hierarchy process (AHP) based mechanism for aligning information technology infrastructure and services with business goals and provide guidance factors for the effective, individualized design of IT services.