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4.1IS strategy & enterprise optimization
Covers information-systems (IS) strategy, which sets the direction of informatization as a means of realizing corporate strategy, and the idea of an enterprise-optimization policy that cannot be achieved by stacking up local optima. It addresses that IS strategy must be aligned with corporate strategy, that department-by-department local optimization invites company-wide duplicate investment, silos, and data inconsistency, and the judgment of positioning individual investments within a whole picture drawn as the IS master plan.
The starting point for an IT strategist is to draw, from a company-wide viewpoint, "in which direction to advance informatization in order to realize the corporate strategy." This is the information-systems (IS) strategy, whose foundation lies in alignment with corporate strategy. Each department individually introducing the system best for itself—a stacking-up that looks reasonable at first glance—can, seen company-wide, invite duplicate investment, double maintenance of data, and inter-departmental siloing, thereby harming the whole enterprise's competitiveness. This section covers the harms of local optimization, the need for an enterprise-optimization policy, and the judgment of casting IS strategy into a whole picture called the IS master plan to position individual investments, from the standpoint of a strategist proposing informatization to management.
4.1.1Aligning IS strategy with corporate strategy
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