Implementing IT strategy - laying a foundation

Abstract

The failure to implement corporate strategies in general and IT strategies in particular can be the reason for lost opportunities, duplicated efforts, incompatible systems, and wasted resources and thus lead to a competitive disadvantage. Empirical works in both domains, business and IT, show a number of problems that exist in practice. Although, being a major concern of business and IT executives, little research and a lack of methodological guidance to support the execution of decisions and actions exists. Since it is important and reasonable to design a methodological support driven by present problems, this article deduces features to compare approaches to IT strategy implementation found in literature. By combining empirical research and method engineering, the approach is in line with the guidelines of design science. On this foundation, we take the first step towards designing the process model of a comprehensive method to implement IT strategy.