Analysing business-IT alignment in the IT outsourcing context:A Case Study Approach

Information technology plays an increasingly important role in developing business strategies. Consequently, it is vital for organizations to ensure an alignment between IT and business strategies and goals. Usually business-IT alignment (BIA) is understood at the organizational level between business and IT teams, whereas IT outsourcing (ITO) extends organizational boundaries and implies inclusion of service providers. In the case of ITO, BIA is harder to achieve and manage. In this paper it is proposed to measure ITO maturity through a set of factors that influence the success of ITO activities, while a selected BIA maturity framework has been extended with two additional dimensions. The combined BIA-ITO model has been applied in a case study, with the purpose to empirically validate the model as well as to gain valuable insights on the BIA-ITO relationship in practice. The results indicate that IT outsourcing can have a positive impact on business-IT alignment