Information technology decision making in South Africa : a framework for company-wide strategic IT management

Includes bibliography.The area of interest in which this Study is set is the linking of a company's business strategies with its strategic planning for IT (information technology). The objectives of the Study are: to investigate how the IT planning environment is changing for business enterprises in South Africa; to establish how successfully South African companies are managing IT strategically; to propose a new approach to strategic IT decision making that will help South African management deal with the major issues; to propose a way of implementing the approach. In Chapter 2, conclusions are drawn from an examination of the key strategic IT planning literature. It appears that fundamental changes are indeed taking place, and are producing significant shifts in the way researchers, consultants and managers think about IT. The survey of South African management opinion is described in Chapter 3. The opinions analyzed range over environmental trends, strategic decision making practices, and what an acceptable strategic IT decision making framework would look like. The need for a new, comprehensive approach to strategic IT decision making in South Africa is clearly established. In Chapter 4, a theoretical Framework is proposed as a new, comprehensive approach to strategic IT decision making. The Framework covers five strategic tasks: analysing the key environmental issues; determining the purposes and uses of IT in competitive strategy and organizational designs; developing the IT infrastructure, human systems, information systems, and human resources to achieve these purposes and uses; implementing the strategic IT decisions; and learning to make better strategic IT decisions. In Chapter 5, ways of implementing the Framework in practice are .identified. A means of evaluating its acceptability in a specific company is also proposed. The general conclusions of the Study are presented in Chapter 6. The Framework developed in this Study is intended for use, not directly by the IT decision makers themselves, but by the persons responsible for designing the IT decision making processes of the company. It is not, however, offered as a theory or a methodology. The aim is· simply to provide a conceptual "filing system", to help designers uncover and classify the IT strategy problems of their own company, to identify the tools their decision makers need, and to put appropriate problem solving processes in place