Volume 15, Number 2 Article by P Vijayaraghavan , G Kannabiran June, 2003
Framework for Strategic Information Systems Planning in the Indian Context :
Competition has changed the way organisations in India view the market place, value human resources, efficiency levels and draw and implement plans. At the same time, the opportunities and challenges offered by Web-based business open up new dimensions to the changing business environment. Information systems and technology (IST), one of the change drivers in the past, has become the reason for change itself in many businesses. The focus of IS applications in terms of value creation has changed from efficiency to effectiveness and is finally moving towards competitive advantage.
Even though Indian organisations realise the growing strategic importance of IT and the need for IS strategic planning, a comprehensive IS strategic planning exercise and its alignment with strategic business planning is lacking.
P Vijayaraghavan and G Kannabiran propose a hybrid framework involving the process and content dimensions along with the context and outcome dimensions of Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) in the Indian context. Further they establish a fit between IS strategic planning and strategic business planning. The preparation for SISP involves the formulation of a collective IS vision in the organisation, and the identification of generic strategies of competitive advantages and specific business strategies that are aimed at achieving business objectives during a planning period. The next step would be an analysis of the Scope for Leveraging IT (SLIT) and of the Competitive Requirements of IT (CRIT) in an organisation, and an assessment of whether their fit is competitive, offensive, defensive or primitive.
Scope-Requirement analysis provides two primary outputs — the SISP objectives, which will lead to IS strategy and a set of competitive business strategies. The strategic IS plan or IS strategy, is the final product, which gets triggered by SISP objectives and leads into the process and contents dimensions. The authors provide the IS strategy planning experiences of three leading Indian organisations from manufacturing, media and healthcare to illustrate their framework.
Reprint No 03205
