Business models and organizational transformation

The focus of the session will be on exploring the concept of a business model. The objective is to understand the ways in which information technology can transform an existing business and/or offer completely new ways of doing business. The aim is to further explore the links between Information technology / information systems strategies and business strategies.

By the end of this session you should have:

• an improved understanding of the relationship between IT / IS strategy and business strategy

• appreciation of the link between IS / IT and the underlying business model

• an appreciation of the ways in which IS / IT can transform the way an existing business operates

In the previous session we looked at the different types information systems there are and at some of the choices that are faced during in their acquisition.

In this session will begin to deal with the core concept in this course: the alignment if IT and business strategy. We will look at some of the key works that deal with strategy and strategic alignment before beginning to look at the complex interrelationship between the two.

We will place a particular emphasis on the potential that IT has to transform an existing business and/or offer completely new ways of doing business and highlight the role that business models can play both in articulating these new ways of doing business and in designing the systems to support / enable them.

Additional reading / background information for session 3

Strategy

General

• Strategic Management - from Wikipedia
  Some thoughts on the subject.

• Strategic Planning.
  Some short background notes on strategic planning.

• SWOT analysis - from Wikipedia
  Strictly speaking this is more concerned with environment scanning but it is often mentioned in discussion of strategy.

• PEST / STEP analysis - from Wikipedia
  Strictly speaking this is more concerned with environment scanning but it is often mentioned in discussion of strategy.

• Balanced Scorecard - from Wikipedia
  Strictly speaking this is more concerned with evaluation of a strategy but it is often mentioned in more general discussions of strategy.

Porter and competitive advantage

• Competitive Advantage.
  Some short notes on the background and nature of Competitive Advantage.

• Michael Porter's work - from Wikipedia
  A summary of the key points on the subject from Wikipedia.

• Porter's Five Forces Model - from Wikipedia
  Some more thoughts on the subject from Wikipedia.

Strategic Alignment

• Business/IT_alignment - from Wikipedia
  A short summary with some links to external sources

• Aligned Strategy Blog
  A blog on strategic alignment with extensive links to external sources

• Strategic Alignment Business and IT - Venkatraman and Henderson
  Some notes on Venkatraman and Henderson's model

Business models

• Business Models.
  Some thoughts on the subject from Wikipedia.

• Business Models on the Web.
  A more comprehensive page on Business models from Prof Michael Rappa, Professor of Technology Management at North Carolina State University.

• Business Models: Learning from Touring Bands.
  A piece from a blog about a business model for games which is based on the way that touring bands make money.

Organizational Transformation

• Technology, Ideology and Social Transformation
  This paper presents six cases that are based on our three year longitudinal study of 40 work groups which illustrate some of the ways in which technology can transform work organization.

• Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance
  "How do computers contribute to business performance and economic growth?" This paper offers a critical perspective on the ability of IT to transform organizations.

• Organizational Transformation through Business Models: A Framework for Business Model Design
  A short paper that looks at the links between Organizational Transformation and Business Models

Reading

In addition to that in the reading in the text books, I have selected four articles from the Harvard Business review for you to look at. The link to these (with a short summary of each) can be found below:

• Required reading for session 3

You may also find the following of use:

• C. Kimble, I. Bourdon and L. Lehmann-Ortega. Business Meta-models and the Saga of Business-IT Strategic Alignment.

• C. Kimble and K. McLoughlin. Computer Based Information Systems and Managers Work.

For private study

Self Assessment

There is a set of self assessment questions to go with this session. The goal of this session was to further explore the links between Information technology / information systems strategies and business strategies. The objective of these self assessment questions is to make you to think about some of the issues that were raised during this session. As with the previous questions, there are no right and wrong answers - the questions are there for you, not as part of a formal assessment.

The notes for this session are available as a presentation (in pdf format) - lecture notes for session 3.