A HOLISTIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY FOR

ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT (HISSOM), APPLIED TO

EUROPE’S LARGEST BANCASSURER

David Lanc

Department of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton Campus, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK

Lachlan MacKinnon

Department of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton Campus, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK

Keywords: HISSOM, Information Systems Strategy, Strategic Information Systems Planning, ISS, SISP

Abstract: Co-ordination and alignment of Information Systems Strateg

y, ISS, with organisational strategy has become

key to competitive success, as the ramifications of the Internet has shifted control from information

providers to information users. Yet, despite over 40 years of research, there remains no established, practical

SISP method for strategic alignment, due primarily to a failure to achieve alignment of the interests of the

perspective groups that influence organisational direction. HISSOM is a practical, holistic model that co-

ordinates the needs of key organisational influence groups, and aligns the organisation’s ISS with its agreed

needs. HISSOM is applied to the first electronic commerce enabled strategy of Europe's largest bancassurer.

The impact of the organisation's strategy on its IS capability, and the emergence of IS-led initiatives, are

highlighted. The five HISSOM perspectives, of external stakeholders, executive management, business

management, IS management responsible for IS strategy, and the wider IS function, and their roles

HISSOM, are also described. The applicability of HISSOM, and its relative success is described.

1 INTRODUCTION

Organisations use strategic planning to ensure their

cap

abilities are fit for purpose, directed, developed

and continuously maintained appropriate to their

foreseeable needs. Accordingly, an organisation’s

Information Systems Strategy, ISS, must ensure its

Information Systems, IS, capability can support

delivery of the strategic plan. Strategic Information

Systems Planning, SISP, approaches have emerged

to attempt to align ISS and organisational strategy.

The rapid and commercial development of the

Int

ernet, and the proliferation of personal computers

to consumer homes globally, have escalated the need

for organisations to manage strategic IS resources in

a more integrated manner than in the past, especially

in markets that can be accessed by consumers

through Web-based IS.

Modern IS, as historically, remain focused on the

data-process

-output cycle (Green, 2000), but must

now recognise the consumer is king. Consumers can

now shop the world from their homes, using readily

available, low-cost, non-proprietary IS, previously

the domain of a few, powerful, information

providers, to commercial benefit. The Internet brings

consumers global connectivity and near

instantaneous responses to generic “search” inputs.

The need for organisations to adopt more responsive

integration and co-ordination of SISP is evident

(Butler Group, 1997).

Research suggests, however, that SISP has often

fai

led due to organisational resistance, poor buy-in

and involvement (McGrath et al, 1998), poor

communication, and deep-seated attitudes that

signify a non-participative IS culture (Hatten &

Hatten, 1997). Yet decisions regarding the direction,

resource allocation and management of IS have

direct performance consequences, highlighting the

need for organisations to “think in terms of

enhancing IS strategic alignment when allocating

scarce IS resources” (Chan et al, 1997).

These dichotomous views can be partially

explaine

d by the business competence of IS

427

Lanc D. and MacKinnon L. (2004).

A HOLISTIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY FOR ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT (HISSOM), APPLIED TO EUROPE’S LARGEST

BANCASSURER.

In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 427-437

DOI: 10.5220/0002616704270437

 SciTePress

executives, which has been found to be a key driver

of the successful integration of organisational and IS

strategy (Teo & King, 1997). IS executives have

acknowledged, moreover, that the key issues they

face include “align IS and corporate goals” and

“conduct IS strategic planning” (Computer

technology Research Corp., 1994), indicating that a

co-ordinated, integrated approach is needed.

The historic failure of SISP approaches to bring

practical co-ordination of different organisational

influence groups must also be addressed. Many

organisations regard SISP as a one-shot process

(Mentzas, 1997), adopting single-perspective, divide

and conquer approaches to impose SISP. This

ignores the fundamental requirement of strategic

planning to embrace cross-functional involvement

and the dynamic character of economic change and

technological innovation, so facilitating a

continuous, “shared vision” of organisational and IS

strategic planning (Pyburn, 1983).

Research indicates that organisational culture, a

difficult area to assess objectively, is an influencing

factor when considering the overall strategic

planning process (Hatten & Hatten, 1997, Chan et al,

1997, Teo & King, 1997, Mentzas, 1997, Lanc &

MacKinnon, 2001).

Fundamentally, IS and organisational strategy

alignment methods must address the need for

realistic equilibrium between the key perspective

groups that influence organisational activity, as well

as between traditional resource capabilities and

organisational needs. The need for integrated, co-

ordinated, and continuously monitored

organisational and IS strategy planning is more

crucial than ever in the age of the Internet.

HISSOM is a practical, holistic model that

facilitates responses to historic weaknesses in SISP

alignment with organisational strategy. It delivers an

integrated organisational and IS strategy which helps

manage and prioritise scarce resources, whilst

recognising the influence of organisational culture

and the “technology push, market pull” nature of

dynamic organisations operating in dynamic

markets.

2 THE STUDY

2.1 The HISSOM model

Studies relating the “linkage” of ISS with

organisational strategy are relatively rare. Research

performed has predominantly observed the strategy

process from a distinct perspective. For example, IS

managers have favoured SISP processes that

typically give them control to develop and

communicate to top management (1) a general IS

architecture; (2) a method to prioritise scarce

resources; (3) a process to identify new opportunities

from new technologies; and (4) a relationship

between IS and organisational management to

ensure critical success factors are understood.

Conversely, organisational management has adopted

its context from an “organisational strategy set”,

defining the organisation’s mission, objectives, and

strategies, which are then passed to IS management

to convert into a “MIS strategy set” of IS objectives,

constraints and strategies (King, 1978).

These approaches are suboptimal insofar as they

adopt a single perspective focus reminiscent of early

system development methodologies. They also lack

an integrated and co-ordinated approach, ignoring

the dynamic nature of the technological and

organisational context.

Developments from the systems engineering

perspective have faired little better when viewed

from beyond that perspective. For example, modern,

commercially developed systems development

methodologies such as the RAD based DSDM

(Stapleton, 1998) can, in the absence of a more

holistic approach, prioritise IS constraints to the

detriment of the wider organisation, resulting in

unplanned, higher risk manual workarounds and

their operational implications, in terms of time, cost,

customer service and knock-on IS support costs. The

modern day reality of a dynamic organisation offers

little probability of justifying further IS

developments to resolve such workarounds.

IS management’s ability to push technology

innovation to the forefront of an organisation must

also be considered from an integrated organisational

perspective. Studies have revealed that many IS

innovations, despite bringing visible value to

organisations and their customers, have been ignored

from an overall organisational context, resulting in

lost organisational opportunity and stakeholder value

(Vitale, 1986). A co-ordinated organisational view

involving other functions must be adopted, including

that of relevant external organisational influences, to

ensure risk and reward are retained in a balance

acceptable to the organisation’s overall strategic

direction.

HISSOM attempts to address the limitations of

existing SISP approaches by co-ordinating delivery

of an integrated organisational and IS strategy from

5 key organisational perspectives. It is a practical

model that considers the impact of organisational

culture, an element ignored by existing methods

(Lanc & MacKinnon, 2001). HISSOM also

recognises the organisation’s external context, or

Weltanschauung (Avison & Fitzgerald, 1995), and

considers the perspectives of external stakeholders

that influence organisational behaviour. Moreover, it

ICEIS 2004 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

428

addresses the weakness of existing SISP methods to

recognise that organisations operate within dynamic

environments, facilitating continuous improvement

feedback methods.

HISSOM’s sole rationale is to manage better the

key perspectives that influence IS strategy and

developments, and to provide a model that accepts

each organisational perspective has something to

offer and, importantly, something to gain from the

other perspectives (Lanc & MacKinnon, 2001).

2.2 Application of HISSOM

HISSOM was applied to the strategy planning phase

of a newly merged organisation, Scottish Widows

plc, comprising the life, pensions and investments

business interests of Lloyds TSB plc, one of the

world’s largest retail banking groups. HISSOM’s 5

perspectives (Lanc & MacKinnon, 2001) are as

follows:

• The stakeholder perspective;

• The organisational management perspective;

• The business emphasis perspective;

• The IS strategy perspective; and

• The baseline capability perspective.

One of the authors was appointed head of the

first strategy formulation programme for the new

organisation. This comprised directing an intensive

programme to produce a compelling strategy for the

organisation, as well as a credible plan for the

integration of the two merged organisations. Both

were large, traditional, heavily computerised

businesses, operating within a tightly regulated

industry undergoing massive changes associated

with the Internet, government forced price

transparency, and market consolidation. Importantly,

the need to deliver a positive cultural environment

from the merger of two very different business

cultures (a bank subsidiary and an independent

mutual organisation) dictated that a co-ordinated,

integrated approach be taken to ensure participation

of key management as well as functional alignment

of the capabilities necessary to meet the

organisation’s objectives.

The position of the authors within the strategic

planning programme allowed an unusually insightful

perspective to be gained of the management and co-

ordination of an integrated organisational and IS

strategy involving the 5 HISSOM perspectives.

3 THE RESULTS

3.1 Stakeholder perspective

HISSOM considers the perspective of the

organisation’s external stakeholder groups. Each

stakeholder group influences the organisation’s

Regulatory

Sta

keholders

Investme

Market

Stakeholders

(Existing &

New)

Figure 1: The HISSOM Stakeholder

Perspective and its impact on the organisation

External

Performance

Organisationa

Organisational Strategy

& Planning Process

Change Management

Organisational Culture

Risk & Financial Management

People - Processes - Technology

Figure 1: The HISSOM Stakeholder perspective and its impact

A HOLISTIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY FOR ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT (HISSOM),

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429

ability to achieve its goals and its management’s

behaviour to varying degrees (figure 1).

An analysis of the external stakeholders relevant

to the organisation was performed, and their primary

methods of evaluating the organisation. This

facilitated a practical assessment by organisational

managers of the behaviour and influence of the

investor, political, regulatory and market stakeholder

environment influencing the organisation when

deliberating their strategy options.

The crucial elements highlighted by the

stakeholder analysis were (1) a major change from

mutual to public company status for Scottish

Widows, with a loss of autonomy previously

enjoyed by executive management, and the external

visibility of organisational results that created; (2) a

realisation of the intense market pressure to deliver a

strategy proving “bancassurance” can work, as well

as delivering publicised merger synergies; (3) the

competitive market changes brought through new

legislation, Web technologies, pricing transparency

(known in the insurance industry as “the 1% world”)

and a new, branch network based distribution

channel; (4) the need to manage a large scale

integration of high cost, multiple mainframe legacy

technologies, as well as deliver merger synergies

and a lower cost, unified, Internet enabled

technology platform for the future; (5) the merger of

two different if complimentary businesses with very

different cultures; and (6) the need to unwind a

significant joint venture partnership which would

require resources needed for the merger and strategy

programme.

The influence of external stakeholders was

verified. Analyses were undertaken of the

implications for the organisation of UK market

consolidation and demutualisation activity, the

impact of the merger on the joint venture which

existed to that point, emerging government

legislation for pension provision and tax free

investments, case law implications on the life

insurance industry, and regulatory interest in the

UK’s largest merger of its kind. The realisation that

the organisation was no longer independent but a

wholly owned subsidiary with a commercial parent

which had to deliver its publicised merger benefits

was a new perspective with which the pre-merger

organisation never had to contend.

3.2 Organisational management

perspective

The perspective of executive management,

accountable to stakeholders for achieving

organisational objectives, focuses upon the need to

align organisational and IS domains (Alter, 1999).

Figure 2 displays the organisational management

perspective, stressing the role of the organisational

strategy, whether market or internally driven, in

achieving differentiation and competitive advantage

(equivalent to organisational objectives in the

stakeholder perspective model). The success of the

Figure 1: The HISSOM Stakeholder

Perspective and its impact on the organisation

External Performance

Benchmarks

People - Processes - Technology

Risk & Financial Management

Organisational Culture

Change Management

Organisational Strategy

& Plannin

Process

Organisational

Objectives

Market Driven

Approach

Continuous

Improvement

Organisational

Strategy Driven

roach

Figure 2: The HISSOM Organisational Management perspective and its impact on the organisation

ICEIS 2004 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

430

organisation’s strategy in achieving the market

position sought equates to the performance

benchmarks available to external stakeholders,

linking the perspectives. The influence of continuous

improvement, CI, activities on the lower five

HISSOM layers, supporting the dynamic,

continuously managed nature of strategic planning,

is also illustrated.

The output from the organisational management

perspective model should provide a set of

organisational objectives and strategic themes for

the wider organisation to validate. Executive

management was cognisant of the stakeholder

perspective and, after consideration of the

organisation’s capabilities in areas such as product

development, customer service, technology

innovation and brand distribution, considered key

internal strategic drivers in addition to market driven

strategic themes.

The resulting output comprised a description of

the market position sought for the organisation,

together with a high level analysis of the strategic

drivers, customer and market segments and key

organisational objectives. These outputs, reflecting

executive management’s perspective of its

organisational capability, were aligned with the

stakeholder perspective, over the strategy time

horizon. The executive management strategy-setting

phase involved detailed interviews, executive team

sessions (some of which were facilitated by external

advisors to bring a further, unbiased, external

perspective), as well as key research into

competitors and general market developments.

Its output was primarily represented in rich

pictures, summarised by a simplified operating

vision at the end of the 3 year strategy horizon, with

objectives for IS and other organisational functions

detailed, and a set of high-level financial hypotheses

which underpinned the strategy and set the financial

targets to be achieved.

The detailed output also provided executive

management’s forecast on the growth of the

business, its broad channel, customer segment and

product components and its market position.

Importantly, from an IS strategy perspective, the

emphasis on automation and IS innovation to deliver

the high level strategy was significant.

This phase involved functional (including IS)

representation at executive level and an executive

management realisation (partially influenced by the

stakeholder perspective) that the organisation’s

products and services were highly IS dependent. The

Internet as a distribution and automation opportunity

was a key theme that emerged from this phase.

A detailed list was prepared of high-level

opportunities, focusing on strategic themes agreed

by executive management, which provided the wider

management team with direction in line with

executive management thinking, whilst maintaining

the themes derived from the stakeholder perspective.

It also provided an initial opportunity review list for

validation by the wider management team.

Importantly, an output of the executive also included

a skills/competency matrix, identifying the core

competences organisational management believed

were needed to deliver the opportunities identified,

including potential outsource areas.

Finally, key themes covering all areas of the

organisation from distribution, marketing and sales,

and customer service to IS and operations were

defined. These would provide input to the business

emphasis phase to be refined into broad vision and

mission statements, strategic objectives and, finally,

business cases and projects, building on the

“organisational strategy set” defined originally by

King

over 20 years ago.

The external stakeholder and organisational

management perspective phases were aided by the

central business services function, which acted as a

co-ordination agent. Although the organisation did

not comprise a large, diversified group of

companies, it was spread across many different

locations, which retained local practices and cultures

in the immediate post-merger period. Adopting a

central control and co-ordination approach provided

organisational management with consistency in

communication and rollout of the strategic themes

output from the executive management forum,

allowing functional management to focus on

validating and developing those themes into

actionable projects. This approach, although not

necessary for HISSOM to be effective, defined the

organisation’s strategic management style (Goold &

Campbell, 1987, Fowler & Wilkinson, 1998).

Finally, opportunities and threats schedules were

prepared, for filtering down to organisational

managers during the business emphasis, IS strategy

and baseline capability perspective phases, where

function-driven innovations, dependencies, risks and

issues are evaluated.

3.3 Business emphasis perspective

This is HISSOM’s key unifying perspective (figure

3), involving the wider organisational management

team. It defines the IS capability the organisation

perceives it needs in greater detail than the

organisational management perspective.

A HOLISTIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY FOR ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT (HISSOM),

APPLIED TO EUROPE’S LARGEST BANCASSURER

431

Business

Processes

It is typically defined in terms of new customer,

product, channel and service objectives, and the

processes that support their delivery. It is therefore

driven to lower levels of detail from each functional

perspective, with a more complete interpretation of

the IS strategic domain being created, building on

prior HISSOM perspectives.

The participative nature of HISSOM is at its

most crucial in the business emphasis perspective. It

transforms the organisational high-level strategy into

tangible actions, a business plan and an operating

model design that represents the end (and potentially

interim) state organisation. It will involve functional

heads (e.g. Head of IS/CIO) with the executive as

sponsors of change activities. Any imbalance in

organisational IS capability and needs is detailed

during this phase.

Business emphasis perspective outputs were

driven by an intensive work programme, divided

into process based, multi-functional workstreams,

organised under a central programme office.

Executive management chaired each workstream,

facilitating communication and validation of the

strategic themes developed from the stakeholder and

organisational management perspectives. Cross-

functional workstreams for e-commerce and

Customer Relationship Management, CRM, were

established, recognising the need for multi-

functional skills representation. Part of the mandate

of these workstreams was to recommend the most

appropriate end-state functional organisation for e-

commerce and CRM, reflecting management’s

recognition of the need for a different cultural

approach.

Co-ordinated management participation was

facilitated by cross-workstream forums, executive

review presentations, and centralised co-ordination

of the creation of the organisational operating design

and financial model. A central Business Planning

team co-ordinated transfer of workstream initiatives

into an integrated plan. This approach resulted in

creation of a central information repository available

to all.

Summary output of the HISSOM business

emphasis perspective phase included the following:

• Market, customer, operational and financial

targets agreed as attainable by the organisation’s

management team;

• Key customer value propositions for specific

customer segments;

• Product profiles for each customer segment;

• Distribution channel strategies for specific

customer segments and products, emphasising large-

scale, centralised processing with flexible, customer

facing, front-end IS;

• A new customer service strategy based on

differential service propositions, utilising higher

levels of automation for lower value segments;

Products

Figure 1: The HISSOM Stakeholder

Pe nisation

rspective and its impact on the orga

Financial MIS/DSS/EIS

Specialist

stems

Office Automation

Systems

Customers

Data Sources & External

Communications

ure 3: The HISSOM Business Em

hasis

ers

ective and its im

act on the or

anisation

Mana

ement & Liaison

ort & Trainin

Contingency & Capacity Planning,

Securit

& Control

Technolo

Infrastructure

ICEIS 2004 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

432

• E-commerce and CRM strategies utilising

centralised legacy technologies with heavily

customised front-end functionality; and

• An operational design and plan supporting

delivery of the strategy as well as consolidation of

the heritage organisations’ operational capabilities.

Co-ordination of joint workstream sessions and

executive forums facilitated involvement of the

management group. A detailed Client Service

operating model for the business was agreed,

comprising a multi-customer segment, multi-

distribution channel, customer-centric sales and

servicing description. Figure 4 identifies the IS

application architecture elements aligned to the

operating model.

The Client Service operating model was enabled

through a number of key IS developments and

initiatives, some of which came from internal

strategic IS drivers, such as Web to legacy

developments output from the organisational

management perspective.

Risks and issues associated with the detailed

design and its high-level initiatives were included

within the initiatives. Skills shortages (e.g. Web

developers) and training needs (e.g. new systems

training) were identified, developing a cultural

change theme from an IS perspective. Management

appreciation of the cultural change needed to adopt

IS-led, customer-centric developments was typified

by a critical focus on IS training for staff.

Resource constraints and dependencies were also

identified. For example, reliance on the parent group

IS function for infrastructure support and

development was significant (rendering the Group

IS function an external stakeholder), as well as the

implications and costs of attaining compliance with

the holding company’s IS standards and policies.

For the first time, and at the most appropriate

HISSOM phase in the strategy planning process,

estimates of the cost of investment and associated

investment return were defined, redefining the high

level financial model previously set by executive

management. These formed the basis of the overall

strategy programme business plan that was

presented and signed-off at parent level.

The business emphasis perspective phase

delivered a strategic initiative prioritisation schedule

agreed by the senior management forum. The co-

ordinated prioritisation process helped identify what

could, and could not, be afforded when scarce

resource issues (e.g. people, money, time) were

confronted (see baseline capability perspective for

examples).

Channel

Business Process

Image storage

and retrieval

System

Wra

Task

Mana

Workflow CTI IVR

Customer

Client

OCIS

PKI

Operational Decisioning

Produc

uotations A

lications

Fact Fin

Customer insight

Underwritin

Polic

Issue

Operational

Customer

Information

Systems

Live

Product

Admin

Systems

Operational

ata

Sto

Legacy

Claims Payments

Data

Warehousing

Group Analytic

Data Warehouse

Scottish Widows

Data Warehouse

ort

Finance HR Actuarial

ure 4: Business Em

hasis Pers

ective

–

h level IS o

eratin

model

A HOLISTIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY FOR ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT (HISSOM),

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433

3.4 IS strategy perspective

This is the perspective (figure 5) of senior IS

management, comprising the IS director and his

direct reports for architecture and strategy,

development, operational support and infrastructure.

The stakeholder, organisational management and

business emphasis perspectives influence it. The

baseline capability perspective defines its base.

It helps IS management identify the specific IS

needs of the organisation within the context of its

existing capability, facilitating interaction with the

organisation’s strategic planning process. Once the

gap between organisational capability and need has

been assessed, identification of the actions,

resources and investment, or divestment, required to

close the gap can be performed.

The output of this HISSOM phase is the broad

range of initiatives, issues, risks and dependencies

which support delivery of the IS operating model

design, which in turn supports the organisational

operating model defined within the business

emphasis phase.

This phase was the most intensive of all

HISSOM phases, requiring continuous co-ordination

between workstreams and integration of outputs

through the business planning workstream. Indeed,

cross-workstream membership became a dominant

facet of this phase, with functional specialists being

seconded to the IS workstream (and vice versa) to

ensure alignment with the strategic themes was

maintained. A number of executive “challenge”

sessions were staged to ensure that executive

management, as a group (individually, executives sat

at the head of each workstream) were in agreement

with the initiatives that would form the strategy

implementation programme. In addition, design

workshops and open “fairs” were staged (some off-

site), to ensure the wider management team had the

opportunity to participate. This approach ensured

that a balance between new innovation and

operational realism was maintained.

A number of iterations between this perspective

and that of the business emphasis and organisational

management perspectives were performed through

support and co-ordination from the central support

team, allowing an interactive, co-ordinated approach

to be taken.

Summary outputs were as follows:

• An IS vision which supported the operational

design of the business emphasis perspective;

• Investment, resource and timescale scenarios

associated with delivering the IS vision (for

prioritisation by executive management);

• A matrix of IS initiatives overlaid upon other

functional initiatives to ensure alignment;

• IS function costs and benefits associated with IS

team consolidation and reorganisation; and

• An initiatives roadmap.

Much of the analyses produced from the IS

strategy perspective were iteratively passed between

IS senior and line management (who adopted the IS

baseline capability perspective) to establish the

levels of constraints, investment and infrastructure

development required. This iterative approach

resulted in two further benefits to the programme:

Change

Management

Competitive Advantage/

Differentiation

Figure 1: The HISSOM Stakeholder

Pe nisation

rspective and its impact on the orga

Financial MIS/DSS/EIS

Office Automation

stems

Specialist

Systems

Organisational IS

abilit

Figure ation 5: The HISSOM IS Strategy perspective and its impact on the organis

Data Sources & External

Communications

Man ing

Techn cture

agement & Liaison, Support & Train

Contingency & Capacity Planning,

Security & Control

ology Infrastru

Cultural Issues

Risk & Financial

Management

ICEIS 2004 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

434

• The emergence of an automated workflow

initiative from within IS which linked operational

consolidation initiatives with e-commerce enabled,

customer direct sales and service initiatives; and

• The identification of certain business process

reengineering initiatives, which could be dealt with

through the organisation’s Continuous Improvement,

activities, which had continued under “business as

usual” during the strategy planning programme (and

which were funded from different budgets).

3.5 Baseline capability perspective

The limitations of any model need to be understood.

HISSOM’s building blocks are contained in the

baseline capability perspective, comprising the basic

IS capability for any organisation (figure 6).

This is the perspective of IS line management

responsible for activities such as development,

network operations, applications support and

systems management. It identifies where the IS

capability needs to change to support the

organisational strategy. IS management must also

define the technologies, operating environments,

support and training policies and standards that

allow the organisation to function within its specific

cultural environment. How best to identify and

utilise specific skills and expertise within service

levels adequate and affordable to the organisation is

a key element of the baseline capability.

HISSOM also facilitates IS originated

opportunities for IS enabled change (e.g. in this case,

workflow, Internet developments and data

warehouse capabilities for customer analysis).

In certain instances, liaison with executive

management is appropriate (e.g. impacts on

organisational culture or whether to outsource or

retain direct control over resources) before decisions

are made regarding the baseline IS capability.

In the case study, certain initiatives to outsource

areas of development were taken, recognising not

only the skill base available to the combined

organisation, but also the relative time and cost of

developing internal skills, such as system migration

and Web development skills. In other areas,

complete legacy systems were outsourced, enabling

the organisation to concentrate on its future IS

platform. The organisation’s new position within a

corporate group boasting the UK’s largest internal IS

capability brought an opportunity to outsource

mainframe infrastructure management and support,

and to focus on developing flexible, lower cost,

market facing IS.

The need to conform to parent group technology

standards brought a limitation to the IS function’s

ability to develop certain systems in isolation, as did

the need to define a “single customer view” of all

Group customers. However, conforming with Group

policies and standards, although constraining in one

dimension, brought with significant opportunities to

leverage from economies of scale once integration

work was complete. For example, the organisation

Figure 1: The HISSOM Stakeholder

Pe nisation

rspective and its impact on the orga

Financial MIS/DSS/EIS

Office Automation

Systems

Specialist

Systems

ure 6: The HISSOM Baseline Ca

abilit

ers

ective and its im

act on the or

anisation

Data Sources & External

ati

Mana

ement & Liaison

ort & Trainin

Contingency & Capacity Planning,

Secu

rit

ntr

Technolo

Infrastructure

Key Elements

Innovation

Speed to market

Value creation

Cost of ownership

Service Levels

A HOLISTIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY FOR ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT (HISSOM),

APPLIED TO EUROPE’S LARGEST BANCASSURER

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had, for the first time, effective access to the UK’s

largest banking customer base, with superior data

mining capabilities.

Significant regulatory constraints, risks and

issues were identified, such as the need to compute

in real-time pensions and investment checks for new

and existing customers across three legacy IS

architectures fronted by new, Web-based customer

service applications. The need to manage customers

by distribution channel factored into new system

developments due to the significant risk of damage

to intermediary relationships if customers were

incorrectly classified as direct customers. The need

for a unified Point of Sale, POS, system integrated

with legacy and new product systems was identified

as high risk. It was allocated an appropriate strategic

priority for resources, product and compliance

training, and technology investment, due to the need

to ensure the organisation could sell its new products

through its branch network without disruption to

customers, intermediaries or the branch network

sales force (all external stakeholders).

HISSOM’s focus on the baseline IS perspective

facilitated the mitigation of significant identified

risks and issues, such as the need to consolidate pre-

merger business continuity and continuous

improvement activities. Migration of legacy IS

architectures, policies and standards were co-

ordinated, allowing the merged organisation’s

business continuity, corporate process and

continuous improvement programmes to continue

with minimal disruption.

All IS capability issues were validated and co-

ordinated at the baseline capability perspective

phase, consolidated at the IS strategy perspective

phase, involving other organisational functions as

necessary during both phases. This involvement

engendered consensus as line and senior functional

management had adequate opportunity to debate key

issues of relevance to achieving an integrated and

co-ordinated organisational and IS strategy.

The output from the baseline capability

perspective comprised detailed initiative charters,

initiative roadmaps, resource, investment,

investment return and dependency analyses. Much

of this information was included in the initiative

schedules signed-off by IS management at a IS

strategy perspective level and as part of the overall

programme initiative schedule at the business

emphasis perspective level. Overall resource

constraint scenarios were analysed at the baseline

capability level to allow senior IS and organisational

management to consider key constraints, allowing

scenario analysis to be performed so that alignment

with organisational strategy could be prioritised on

an ongoing basis.

4 SUMMARY

We set out to determine whether HISSOM measured

up to its promise as a practical model for integrating

ISS direction and IS capability with organisational

strategy and objectives.

Applied to the UK’s largest bancassurer,

HISSOM has validated its relevance, as a practical

SISP method, to a large organisational, real-world

setting in which strategy management is co-

ordinated centrally but integrated within an

environment of close liaison and involvement.

The complete programme took almost 6 months

and involved over 100 senior staff and external

consultants. Much was learned in terms of

development of the detailed HISSOM analyses and

practical steps that need to be performed, often in

parallel, during an intensive strategy planning

programme. These lessons will be used to develop a

more detailed HISSOM model, with a browser-

based HISSOM application planned for wider use.

The essential difference that HISSOM brought

was its focus on interaction, providing understanding

of the need to align different perspectives and, a

surprising but nonetheless beneficial effect, a

recognition that strategy centres on co-ordinated and

managed processes, a theme in current vogue within

the business community (Eisenhardt & Sull, 2001).

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A HOLISTIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY FOR ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT (HISSOM),

APPLIED TO EUROPE’S LARGEST BANCASSURER

437