Can ITIL contribute to IT/business alignment? An initial investigation

Abstract

Strategic alignment has been viewed as one of the main concerns of management and IT executives. Organizations have realized that in order to achieve competitive advantage, IT needs to be strategically aligned with business objectives. Strategic alignment enables organizations to choose IT applications that meet their needs and as a result, to enhance their profitability and reduce costs. Despite the importance of this matter and a large body of literature written on this subject, it has not yet been identified how it can be successfully achieved and maintained. This paper attempts to provide insight on this matter by investigating an initiative called Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), which ensures the effective and efficient delivery of IT services. The intention of this research was to identify how effective ITIL was in improving alignment between IT and business objectives.The Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) developed by Henderson and Venkatraman was used for this research. This consists of four parts: IT strategy; business strategy; organizational infrastructure and processes; and IS infrastructure and processes. By placing ITIL in the internal domain of the model as a substitute for the IS infrastructure and processes it has been identified that it has the ability to impact the other three main areas of the model and as result enables alignment between all the four parts of model to be achieved.In addition to the above an empirical study has been conducted in order to further investigate the ability of ITIL in achieving alignment between IT and business objectives. Four participants have been interviewed from three organizations ranging from education and banking to the IT sector. The results of the research indicate that ITIL has potential as an effective approach in achieving alignment.