Business-IT Alignment within the Management of Business
Informatics Model
Alena Buchalcevova and Jan Pour
Dept. of IT, University of Economics, Prague, W. Churchill Sq. 4, 130 67 Prague, Czech Republic
Keywords: Management of Business Informatics, Business-IT Alignment, Metrics, Analytical Application.
Abstract: The paper focuses on a current highly discussed subject of interest related to Business-IT alignment. The
objective of this research is to examine recently developed framework for IT management, the Management
of Business Informatics (MBI) model, from the Business-IT alignment point of view and show that by using
the MBI model Business-IT alignment can be better supported. As a result of the analysis several areas
addressing Business-IT alignment within the MBI model are presented, e.g. communication and cooperation
between company managers and IT managers, tasks aimed at the definition of the relations between the IT
and business management, definition of metrics, development and deployment of analytical application.
1 INTRODUCTION
Information systems and information technologies
represent means to a successful business operation,
innovation and growth. To leverage all these
benefits Business-IT alignment initiative was
established. Previous research has stated positive
impacts of Business-IT alignment on company
performance (Chan et al., 1997; Chan et al., 2006;
Oh and Pinsonneault, 2007; Preston and Karahanna,
2009; Tallon, 2008; Tallon and Pinsonneault, 2011).
However, several issues of existing models aimed at
Business-IT alignment are mentioned, e.g. low
feasibility (Hiekkanen et al., 2012), lack of
connections with the real world (Ciborra, 1997), lack
of concise validated results (Zhou and Cai, 2011;
Avison et al., 2004).
The objective of this research is to examine the
Management of Business Informatics (MBI) model
(Buchalcevova and Pour, 2015), recently developed
framework for IT management, from the Business-
IT alignment point of view. The research question is:
Does the MBI model support Business-IT alignment
and in which areas?
This paper is organized as follows. First, the
concept of Business-IT alignment is introduced.
Then, the concept of the MBI model is outlined and
the analysis of the MBI model from the Business-IT
alignment viewpoint is presented. Finally,
conclusions are discussed.
2 BUSINESS-IT ALIGNMENT
Business-IT alignment has been studied since the
early 1980s (e.g., Chan and Reich, 2007; Chan et al.,
1997). According to Wu et al. (2015) strategic
alignment can be classified into two dimensions
(Reich and Benbasat, 2000): (1) the intellectual, and
(2) the social. Studies on the intellectual dimension
concentrate on the content of plans and planning
methodologies while those dealing with the social
dimension focus on the people involved in the
creation of alignment (Reich and Benbasat, 1996).
Looking at the intellectual dimension (strategy, plan,
operation, or process alignment), studies show an
existing relation of strategic alignment to
performance (Tallon and Pinsonneault, 2011). On
the other side, in case of the social dimension, the
grounds of social alignment as well as the relation
between both dimensions are principal matters of
research (e.g., Preston and Karahanna, 2009; Reich
and Benbasat, 2000).
Three forms of Business-IT alignment have been
established: functional (e.g. Oh and Pinsonneault,
2007; Tallon and Pinsonneault, 2011), structural
(e.g., Broadbent and Weill, 1993; Hodgkinson,
1996), and dynamic (e.g., Itami and Numagami,
1992; Sabherwal et al., 2001).
Luftman (2000) points out that achieving the
alignment is an evolutionary process and proposes
the Strategic Alignment Maturity (SAM) model for
696
Buchalcevova, A. and Pour, J.
Business-IT Alignment within the Management of Business Informatics Model.
DOI: 10.5220/0006778506960703
In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2018), pages 696-703
ISBN: 978-989-758-298-1
Copyright
c
 2019 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

assessment these activities. This alignment maturity
instrument has been tested on hundreds of SMEs and
large organizations (Luftman and Kempaiah, 2007;
Gutierrez et al., 2009) throughout several years.
Recent studies examine various factors and their
impact on Business-IT alignment, e.g. change
management (Avila and Garcés, 2017), geographic
context (Nicho and Khan, 2017) and particularly
human resources (Jorfi et al., 2017; Roses et al.,
2015; Tunuguntla et al.,2016 ).
3 MANAGEMENT OF BUSINESS
INFORMATICS MODEL
To endorse and prompt efficient IT management, the
Management of Business Informatics (MBI) model
was developed. The objective of the MBI model is
to provide a support for business informatics
management activities in companies that figure as
the users of ICT services. The architecture of the
MBI model is defined in the UML 2.0 class diagram
notation in Figure 1.
A key MBI component represents a Task which
describes how to proceed in solving a particular IT
management issue. The MBI model defines a large
number of Tasks that are organized in a three-level
hierarchy, i.e. Management Domains, Task Groups,
and Tasks. The Management Domains level
constitutes the highest level of the MBI hierarchy
and consists of the following domains:
 Strategic Management;
 IT Service Management;
 IT Resource Management;
 Economics Management;
 Development Management;
 Operations Management.
Within each management domain, the Groups of
Tasks are defined, which represent a set of related
tasks. Each Task has several attributes. Besides the
identification attributes, there exist also other
attributes which represent a specific content of the
Task, i.e. Goal, Purpose, Content, and Scheme of
Activities. An additional content of the Task is
represented by relations to following classes:
 Document  represents a printed or electronic
document that is used as a Task input or output.
 Scenario  represents a typical issue that needs
to be addressed in a business life, e.g. IT cost
reduction.
 Application  comprises application software
that can be utilized for a given Task.
 Metric – determines key indicator of a Task
performance.
 Method  describes formalized processes and
guidelines to fulfil the goal of a Task.
 Role  expresses specific responsibilities of a
role holder.
 Factor  has a significant impact on the way a
particular Task is performed. To the most
important Factors belong: Organization Size,
Industry Sector (in which an organization
operates), and Organization Type (i.e. private
company or public institution).
To assure that key business informatics
management features are considered, a concept of
Business Informatics Features was introduced.
Regarding each Task, its possible impact on
Business Informatics Features (e.g. Availability,
User-friendliness, Security, Integrity, etc.) is
measured in the form of yes/no record. This way it is
possible to discover all the Tasks that affect a
particular information system feature.
The MBI model was described in detail in
(Vorisek et al., 2012) and presented in several
articles (Pour, Vorisek and Feuerlicht, 2013;
Vorisek, Pour and Buchalcevova, 2015;
Buchalcevova and Pour, 2015). For the purpose of
an effective MBI model demonstration, evaluation,
and usage, the MBI model was implemented as a
web application (at the URL mbi.vse.cz). A MBI
community was established shortly after the model’s
official presentation, which unites the MBI content
authors and the most active users, organizes
meetings, presentations and training, and enables to
exchange experience. Currently, the MBI application
is in the Czech language, but an English version is
being prepared.
4 MBI MODEL ANALYSIS FROM
BUSINESS-IT ALIGNMENT
VIEWPOINT
4.1 Motivation and Methodology
Even though a number of concepts of Business-IT
alignment are present together with methods and
frameworks of IT Governance, e.g. Cobit (COBIT,
2015), ITIL (ITIL, 2007), TOGAF (TOGAF, 2009),
a great deal of open issues in practice still remains as
pointed out by research results worldwide (ITGI,
2011; Küller et al., 2012).
Surveys conducted in the Czech Republic (Pour,
Business-IT Alignment within the Management of Business Informatics Model
697

Figure 1: MBI Model Architecture.
2012) show that issues in ensuring an effective
Business-IT alignment in an organization are of
three kinds. First, CIO and other IT managers focus
primarily on technological aspects of IT. This brings
along a low level of knowledge of their own
company from the business viewpoint and a little
awareness of business principles. Such
incomprehension of their company’s business needs
consequently reduces the quality of the alignment.
Second, company management and key users
underestimate the knowledge of functionality of the
operated applications and methods they are based
on. This fact often reduces the level of application
utilization that are usually very expensive or of a
strategic importance to company competitiveness.
Third, the users lacking such knowledge are rarely
able to successfully cooperate on a further
development of these applications. It is evident that
the main challenge of effective Business-IT
alignment lies in obtaining necessary knowledge on
both sides of the relationship. The motivation for the
research was to examine if the MBI model has
instruments that can improve this knowledge.
While performing the analysis, the architecture
of the MBI model (see Figure 1) was utilized and
each element inspected according to its influence on
Business-IT alignment. The following areas of the
MBI model which deal with Business-IT alignment
were identified:
1. Provision of high-quality and qualified
communication and cooperation between
company managers and IT managers,
especially the CEO, CFO, CMO on one side
and the CIO on the other side.
2. Clear identification and detailed definition of
the relations between IT management and
business management tasks.
3. Definition of metrics (and KPI) for business
management as well as IT management
which are mutually in compliance, are a part
of specification of defined services and
respect the objectives stated in corporate
strategy and other strategic documents.
4. Development and deployment of analytical
and planning applications aimed at an
evaluation of key monitored metrics and
identification of an overall quality of IT
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services and their alignment with the business
needs.
5. Specification of factors influencing the level
of Business-IT alignment.
Each area is described in detail in the following
sections.
4.2 Communication and Cooperation
between Business Management and
IT Management
Since the first version, the MBI model has been
focused on an examination and evaluation of
business and IT relations. To support the principle of
“Business-IT alignment” or “Business-driven IT”,
the MBI Group of Tasks “IT as a Part of Business”
was developed within the domain of Strategic
Management. This Group of Tasks incorporates best
practices and recommendations for ensuring an
alignment between business and IT at the level of
strategic company management.
The “IT as a Part of Business” Group of Tasks
comprises the following Tasks:
 “Role of IT in Achievement of Business
Objectives”
Within this Task, the aim is to ensure the CIO
and other IT managers perfectly understand the
business objectives and are able to assess the
opportunities how IT can contribute to their
achievement.
 “IT Professionals with Knowledge of Business
Economics”
This Task defines the procedures for a
development of necessary business knowledge
among IT professionals, especially managers and
analytics. This represents the essential prerequisite
for an effective communication between IT
professionals and the user community.
 “Management of IT and Business Cooperation
on Corporate Strategy Development”
Corporate strategy is currently strongly linked
with IT. The aim of this Task is to define the rules
and procedures governing the cooperation of IT
management (CIO and others) and company
management throughout the development of a
corporate strategy.
 “Review of IT Strategy According to Business
Requirements”
IT strategy should be based on corporate strategy
and current company requirements on IT. The aim of
this Task is to set best practices and
recommendations for adjusting an IT strategy to
newly emerging business requirements.
 “Management of IT and Business
Communication”
Communication between business leadership and
IT managers takes place constantly and plays a key
role in a mutual understanding which determines the
success of IT projects as well as the whole company.
The aim of this Task lies in a definition of such rules
and communication standards that lead to a highly
effective communication.
 “Cooperation of IT Professionals on Business
Model Development”
Business objectives and overall corporate
strategy are reflected in fundamental rules and
procedures within the business model that determine
a company’s operation. The aim of this Task is to
specify concrete arrangements of these relations.
 “Company Management and IT Professionals
Trust Building and CIO Leadership”
One of the key prerequisites of a decent
alignment between business and IT is a trust
building between company management and IT
professionals and a quality leadership at the level of
the CIO. The aim of this Task consists in forming
such principles that endorse and further develop trust
and great leadership.
In conclusion, these Tasks are all focused on
setting the closest and most effective relationships
between business management and IT management
at the strategic level.
4.3 Relations between Business
Management and IT Management
Tasks
The MBI model as any other methodology or
framework for IT management defines the IT
management Tasks (e.g. “IT Service Catalogue
Development”, “SLA Monitoring”, etc.) as well as
the Tasks focused on a specific IT solution or IT
development (e.g. “Business Intelligence Feasibility
Study”, “Requirements Analysis of Business
Intelligence”, etc.). Apart from the above mentioned
Tasks of IT management and IT development, the
MBI model also comprises the business
management Tasks. The MBI model as well as its
implementation as a web application store all these
relationships and enable their traceability.
4.4 System of Metrics Definition
The MBI model includes a system of metrics
assessing IT management as well as business
management. First, the metrics for IT management
were defined followed by the metrics aimed at
Business-IT Alignment within the Management of Business Informatics Model
699

business performance and management which
gradually develop and together form a system of
business metrics. Each metric is characterized not
only by its content, but also by related analytical
dimensions and sources of value assessment. In this
case, an analytical dimension represents the
viewpoint from which a metric can be analysed. For
example, looking at the metric of Sales Volume, it
can be analysed by the dimension of Customers,
Products, Business Units, and others. The logic
behind dimension utilization within this model is
based on the principles of Business Intelligence. The
MBI metrics are grouped into Packages. Each
Package contains only one basic metric and then
other metrics that are either related or derived in
order to reduce the excessive number of IT and
business metrics.
Figure 2: Relations between IT and Business Metrics.
Considering the metrics being bound to
individual IT and business Tasks and the relations
existing between these Tasks, it is possible to derive
the relations between IT and business metrics as
well (see Figure 2). Figure 2 depicts the relation
between the business management and IT
management Tasks and metrics that are linked to
these Tasks. This example illustrates particular IT
services that are related to sales management
through SLAs, their quality, fulfilment, etc. The
current version of the MBI model implements the
relations between metrics deriving them from the
Tasks. However, we expect to address essential
direct relations between metrics in the next MBI
model versions.
4.5 Development and Deployment of
Analytical Applications
After defining appropriate metrics, it is necessary to
carry out measurements and assess defined metrics.
For this purpose, a group of self-service BI
applications within the MBI model is defined. The
aim of the self-service BI applications (Russo and
Ferrari, 2013) is to provide users with an
environment to execute their analytical tasks without
the necessity to utilize complex and usually highly
complicated BI systems.
An example of such an application represents the
Analysis of User Request Fulfilment with its basic
dashboard depicted in Figure 3. It shows the ratio of
user requests being fulfilled according to business
units and progress over time (according to quarters).
Similarly, it is possible to carry out such analyses
according to other analytical dimensions. These data
then demonstrate how much time an IT department
dedicates to solving issues of individual business
units and their management areas. This generally
allows evaluate the connection of business and IT as
to individual areas of corporate governance. Figure 3
shows, that IT (and the whole company) currently
devotes the highest amount of time and attention to
the requirements of repair management, investment
analytics, and purchase department. This data serve
only as an example, as the priorities usually differ in
particular business conditions. The lower part of the
figure depicts the development of the ratio of
fulfilled user requests in each quarter of the year.
4.6 Factors Influencing Business
Management and IT Management
Within the MBI model, a system of management and
technological factors is defined that also affect the
level and quality of business and IT management
Tasks and subsequently their relations.
These factors include, for example, the
following:
 Economic Environment
This factor covers the overall economic
environment of a company and also a country and
their impact on IT investments, anticipated business
development, emergence of new branches and
subsidiaries and their IT needs, anticipated
development of new services (including IT services)
provided to external customers, etc.
 IT Market Performance
This factor involves new IT market trends and
development of products and services and their
impact on IT Tasks in relation to business
objectives, e.g. on the Tasks of IT Strategy, Business
Strategy, Project Planning, etc.
The MBI model contains over 100 defined factors
that significantly influence both IT and business. An
analysis of such factors and their impact on the
business and IT Tasks constitutes the basis for a
realistic assessment and management of Business-IT
alignment. Taking these factors into consideration
also helps to facilitate a company’s success and
improve its competitiveness while enabling to
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Figure 3: Analysis of User Request Fulfilment.
continuously update the content and principles of the
MBI model to incorporate new technologies,
management approaches, etc.
5 CONCLUSIONS
To support business informatics management in
companies the Management of Business Informatics
(MBI) model was developed and has been utilizing.
The objective of this research was to examine the
MBI model from the Business-IT alignment point of
view and find out if the MBI model supports
Business-IT alignment and in which areas. Results
of the MBI model analysis were presented that
demonstrate several areas of Business-IT alignment
within the MBI model, e.g. communication and
cooperation between company managers and IT
managers, definition of the relations between the IT
management and business management Tasks,
definition of metrics, development and deployment
of analytical applications. These findings represent
the baseline for further research aimed at measuring
the level of Business-IT alignment support as a
result of the MBI model utilization.
Main contribution of this research lies in
presenting a tool that serves not only for IT
management in companies but also for the Business-
IT alignment improvement. The above mentioned
approaches and utilization of the objects developed
within the MBI model provide an opportunity for a
more accurate, comprehensive, and concrete solution
to the Business-IT alignment issue according to
specific conditions of individual companies and
organizations.
Implications of this research mainly support
practice and education. Currently, the MBI model as
well as the portal is used as an information source
for addressing individual issues especially in small
and medium-sized enterprises. Besides use in
business the MBI model and application are used in
university courses at Prague University of
Economics and Czech Technical University in
Prague.
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