Information System Strategy Planning And Strategic Alignment: An Empirical Study On LXH Corporation

In the past 20 years,the scale of IT(information technology) application has been expanding gradually as well as the ceaseless deepening of its complexity.IT and commercial activities are interlaced together inseparably.IT has become one of the most important weapons to cope with the fierce competition,for instance,the model of information transparency based on IT,the open and shared commercial concepts based on Internet.All these technologies drive the enterprises to rethink their own roles and behaviors in the business world.As the main source to change and optimize business activities,IT has been extended from the single enterprise into the industries nowadays. Pushed by Moore's Law continuously,IT becomes the driving force for the enterprise development and innovation.So to speak,a sophisticated and sustainable information system takes a large part in the enterprise operation and helps to achieve competitive advantages in the furore.Without doubt,the technology brings new IT application in each period,and works as the power to give impetus to enterprises at the same time.But after the IT investment, many enterprises found that the information systems could not create commercial value as expected,which is so called 'Information Paradox'.One of the major reason to cause this situation is that the enterprises are lacking in the IT strategy planning and management.It is a huge challenge to enterprises.Only through the better strategic planning,enterprises would take advantage of the information systems in the business changing and gain from the investment.The objective of this thesis is to analyze and study the methodology of IT strategic planning in enterprise.Several IT strategic planning methods are discussed and researched, especially the linkages between the strategic use of information technology and business performance.In the first half of this thesis,the necessity and importance of IT strategy study is discussed at the beginning.Secondly,the history and condition of IT strategy is analyzed, including its crucial milestones and characteristics,its effectiveness and application achievements as well as its major issues at home and abroad.Andthen,the methodology of IT strategic planning are studied,including BSP,SST,CSF,the strategy alignment and the essential factors which may impact strategy deployment.In the Second half,it emphasizes in the analysis of a real case-LXH Company IT strategy planning,which help us to acquire a better understanding of the theories and methods,such as balanced scorecard,IT strategy reliability inspection.Then,the brief strategy deployment plan and results are described.Lastly,based on the summary of this thesis,the future expectation of the research on enterprise IT strategy planning is described briefly.The thesis is trying to enrich the perspective and method on the study of enterprise IT strategy planning,according to the current theories together with the real operation management situation in LXH Company.