BITA 2010 Workshop Chairs’ Message

Abstract

A contemporary challenge for enterprises is to keep up with the pace of changing business demands imposed on them in different ways. There is today an obvious demand for continuous improvement and alignment in enterprises but unfortunately many organisations don’t have proper instruments (methods, patterns, best practices etc.) to achieve this. Enterprise modelling and business process management are two areas belonging to a tradition where the mission is to improve business practice and business and IT alignment. In this tradition the alignment process usually is manifested in taking a business from one state into another improved state, i.e. a transformation of the business and its supporting IT into something that is regarded as better. A challenge in business and IT alignment is to move beyond this narrow focus on one tradition or technology. We need to be aware of and able to deal with a number of dimensions of the enterprise architecture and their relations in order to create alignment. Examples of such dimensions are: organisational structures, strategies, business models, work practices, processes, and IS/IT structures. Among the concepts that deserve special attention in this context is IT governance. An effective IT governance aligns IT investments with overall business priorities, determines who makes the IT decisions and assigns accountability for the outcomes. There are ordinarily three governance mechanisms that an enterprise needs to have in place, 1) decision-making structures, 2) alignment process, and 3) formal communications.