Impact of Agility on the Business IT Alignment
Kawtar Imgharene
1
, Karim Doumi
2
and Salah Baina
1
1
I Ensias, Mohamed V Rabat University, Morocco
2
FSJESR, Mohamed V Rabat University, Morocco
Keywords: Business IT Alignment, Agility, IT Agility, Business Agility.
Abstract: A strategic alignment with a strictly constant rhythm assumes stability. There are several factors that influence
this stability. The strategic alignment must be evolutionary, long-term, and dynamic in spite of those factors.
In our case we opted for the agility. Agility has a global impact on the internal and external environment of
an organization. Agility concerns the future of the organization/company. It is this concept which became a
standard for business models since the rhythm of the change in companies accelerates. The current article
reflects this idea, by describing the nature of the relation between the factor of agility and the strategic
alignment in the determination of various types of agility. Furthermore, we try to establish in this article if an
aligned system can stay so, by transforming the company into an agile one. A transformation on all the levels
of abstraction is going to maintain the alignment on the long term and will give an added value, and a way
the changes can be detected in reality and be gradually integrated within the framework of the strategic
alignment.
1 INTRODUCTION
Over the years, particularly during the last two
decades, there has been a fast technological
advancement which has changed the way in which
firms behave. They need to try to get the excellence
and remain competitive in a world that is stimulated
by the same advancement in Information Technology
(IT). A key success factor for a successful business in
a dynamic business environment is an effective and
efficient IT strategy capable of supporting the
strategies and processes (Henderson and
Venkatraman, 1993). A situation has therefore arisen,
asking for a strategic integration of trades with the IT.
It is because of this that most current agencies are
trying to implement IT governance with the model's
support variables, in order to be able to reach one of
the ultimate objectives, namely the alignment
between business strategy and IT.
If this alignment is inadequate, the enterprise
processes would not take full advantage of the
technological means invested (Henderson and
Venkatraman, 1993). In effect, the changes often
influence the organization in its entirety, concerning
the business processes in the information system.
However, it is important for organizations if they
aim at staying competitive, to respond quickly and
flexibly to anticipated changes. In previous studies
and research, it was observed that the strategic
alignment is affected by several factors, to cite only a
few of them: communication between IT and
strategy, the sharing of knowledge between IT and
strategy, the flexibility of environment, the agility of
the system, the ambiguity, and so on. For this study,
we have put the emphasis on agility due to some
reasons which will be mentioned further on in the
current article. In a chaotic environment in which
markets are emerging, evolve and die, one of the main
success determinants of a company is agility, the
ability to remain flexible in the face of new
developments, continuously adjusting the strategic
company direction and developing innovative ways
of creating value. The competitive environment has
significantly evolved over the past few years.
Companies should adapt fast to unpredictable
changes.
However, recent research also indicates that
organizations can fall into a trap where the inflexible
rigidity may impede or delay the ability of an
organization to respond to environmental changes
(Benbya and McKelvey, 2006) (Tallon and
Pinsonneault, 2011).
It is challenging for any business to anticipate
changes and adapt quicker and more effectively.
What is underlying with regard to agility is: change.
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Therefore this article has developed an adequate
response to the following question: : “How can long-
term dynamics be facilitated through strategic
alignment, by detecting change, assuming business
agility?” For this, we have established that an aligned
system is to be able to move to the challenges of
change. For this, the system is to allow
transformations while keeping the alignment of
information systems with the business process.
The remaining of the paper is organized as
follows: Section 2 will present a state-of-the-art
analysis. Section 3 will consider relevant approaches.
Section 4 presents an analytical discussion. Section 5
concludes the article.
2 LITERATURE
2.1 Agility
We define agility concerning an organization
/company as a set of processes which allow the
organization to detect changes in the internal and
external environment, respond effectively in a timely
and efficient manner, and learn from previous
experience to improve the organizational skills.
2.2 Business IT Alignment
Since the beginning of the nineties, the business
alignment with IT was becoming an issue for
increasing organizational performance and has
received much attention in literature for example:
(Thevenet, 2009). The business IT Alignment relates
to the alignment between the company and the IT
strategies, and between the organizational
information systems and infrastructure (Henderson
and Venkatraman, 1993). It is defined as "the extent
to which the framework of the mission, objectives and
plans of support, and are supported by, the mission of
the organization, objectives and plans" (Hirschheim
and Sabherwal, 2001). This alignment creates an
integrated organization where each function, unit, and
person are centred on the organization and its
competitiveness.
2.3 Relationship Between Business IT
Alignment and Agility
Chung et al. (2003) find a strong correlation between
the agility of the IT infrastructure and the strategic
Business IT alignment. They conclude that IT must
be closely aligned with the organizational strategy
with a view on the computer infrastructure to be able
to facilitate the agility of the company. This close
alignment means that the IT infrastructure must be
flexible, because the agility of the IT infrastructure
enables the company to develop new processes and
applications quickly, which allows the agility of the
company.
If there would be a proper relationship between
the strategic company alignment and the enterprise
agility, those two would impact one another and give
an added value that is the nature of the relationship
between them.
Previous research shows that knowledge sharing
facilitates the business-IT collaboration and this
makes it easier for businesses to detect changes
before deciding to a common line for the best way to
react (Barki and Pinsonneault, 2005; Tallon and
Pinsonneault, 2011).
The resulting alignment between IT and the
enterprise strategy can activate the agility since
essential changes in the strategy can be easily
communicated to IT managers. In this way, the path
of dependencies and routines provided by the
alignment can allow to increase the adaptability and
innovation (Zahra and George, 2002).
Resources for business process integration and
concerning vicinity with regard to the locus of change
mean that, in addition to facilitating the alignment,
firms are more likely to be agile to respond to change
(Tallon, 2008).
If it is proved that the use of environmental
assessment allows an alignment, it can be assumed
that it will also allow the organization to be more
flexible while working effectively (Tallon and
Pinsonneault, 2011; Obitz et al., 2009) and to
anticipate the changes to come in order to be ready
for them. The agility is perceived as a result or an
advantage of alignment (Tallon and Pinsonneault,
2011).
2.4 Enterprise Architecture and Agility
The architecture of enterprise is defined as the whole
of the primitive and of descriptive artefacts which
constitute a knowledge base of the company
(Zachman, 2005).
Moreover, a survey conducted by Infosys in 2009
shows that the key objective of an enterprise
architecture is the Business IT alignment.
Type of Agility
Agility can be incorporated in each layer of the
architecture of the organization / enterprise or in the
enterprise as a whole. The main challenge for the
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achievement of agility is to obtain the alignment
through the different layers and components of the
enterprise architecture. We have tried to define each
type of agility by report to the whole layer of the
enterprise architecture.
Strategic / Business Agility which encompasses:
business architecture as well as the process.
• The ability of an enterprise to develop and
exploit it’s inter and intra-organizational
capabilities.
Operational / IT Agility which includes:
functional architecture, and application technique.
Reconfiguring or replacing your information
technology systems when new marketplace realities
change the way you have to do business.
Agility is analysed in the perspective of structural
design within the enterprise architecture as a whole
and in the different layers of the enterprise
architecture.
3 STUDIES OF APPROACHES
In literature, several approaches are relevant to the
problem of the business IT alignment (Couto et al.,
2015; Engelsman et al., 2011; Doumi et al., 2013).
Without taking into account the business agility, other
researchers (Tallon and Pinsonneault, 2011;
Wirattanapornkul, 2012) have determined the
relationship between the agility and the alignment and
in concluding that the agility is perceived as a result
of the alignment. Others (Lemrabet, 2012) have
developed service-oriented approaches that focus on
business process management and service-orientation
with the strategic alignment, by making the business
agile.
This part is intended to define a multi-dimensional
grid, which encompasses all the approaches which
speak of the set of strategic alignment and agility
which are refined by the criteria of a general
definition "A company is called agile when its
operational components work together in synergy and
in addition: if one happens to have a system that
anticipates and detects the change in order to
allow the integration and reactivity". Anticipation,
detection of change, and the reactivity, have two sub-
levels: level of abstraction and the nature of the
reactivity to determine the impact of agility on the
strategic alignment.
3.1 Analytical Grid
According to the analytical grid, Tallon and Pinson-
neault (2011) have made a comprehensive study on
how strategic alignment would have a positive or
negative impact on agility, "Agility is perceived as a
result or benefit of alignment".
Oosterhout (2010) has designed a model that
anticipates what could happen and thus detect
changes internal or external that can disrupt the
system. Further, Oosterhout considers this
extensively as factor which will thus concern the
changes in the system.
Agility and strategic alignment can be measured
together to see whether their co-habitation is what it
is necessary for the architecture of the company or
not.
Detection of change should be considered
explicitly as well as its impact on all levels of the
model, and we consider several criteria for that. First
of all, information on changes is to be collected.
Secondly these changes are to be analysed in the
framework of the enterprise information system.
Thirdly, the agility under the influence of IT is to be
evaluated with respect to the strategy of the company.
Fourthly, the design changes are to be validated as it
concerns the changes collected.
4 DISCUSSION
It is assumed that a system is aligned when each level
of the architecture is in correspondence with the
various levels of abstraction. Agility can give us an
added value for this system and thus we can consider
agility to be a level of maturity for the alignment, a
model which will thus make the system aligned and
agile any by measuring the agility, we can establish
that.
What would be the impact of agility on an aligned
system? Perhaps an evolution? In this section we
quote essential points concerning the possibility of
transforming an agile business, knowing that its
system is still aligned and dynamic. The alignment is
the connection between the entities. When there is a
change it is the whole system that is affected. We
argue that change is rarely considered as a concept in
itself. It is therefore seldom represented.
In effect, it is difficult to reason on a concept if it is
not clearly formalized.
When there is a change environmental factors
which affect the aligned system, the first thing that
must be done to change it is the strategy of the
company which has its turn determine the key
objectives which must be consistent with the
objectives regarding the IT.
Impact of Agility on the Business IT Alignment
235

Approach
Criteria
Rabab Imach et al.,
2012
Tallon and
P.P, 2011
Oosterhout et al.,
2007
Bonnet
2009
Bradley et
al., 2011
Anticipate
Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Detect of
change
Yes/NO
Yes No Yes No No
Types of
uncertainty
Implementation the
strategic standby
NaN
Factor of change
establish
NaN NaN
Nature of
uncertainty
Change intern and
external.
These changes are
analyzed in the
Urbanization IT
NaN
Identification of
six factors of
change between
change internal
and external
Nan Nan
Correction
action
Level
All the level abstract
to project POIRE
NaN
Between Business
and IT
NaN
Enterprise
Architectu
re (All of
the level)
Nature
The necessary
adjustments are
implemented at each
level identified for
each dimension of the
project POIRE
Process of continuous
improvement
NaN
BAN-NEED-
BAR-Readiness-
BAG-GAP
NaN
Impact
maturity
EA in an
assign-
ment
business
IT for an
agile
enterprise
Therefore, for an agile transformation one must
arrive to take the best decisions, as quickly as possible
as well remaining aligned.
The firms are more likely to be agile to respond to
change. In addition, a flexible system can keep a
scalable enterprise in the long term.
In summary, the world is facing a new change
paradigm and it is necessary to mobilize the human
capital of enterprises to respond to adequately.
The business of tomorrow will be agile. It will be
aligned as well: there will be a symmetry between the
promise made to collaborators and to clients. It will
mutate in passing from a stable state to an unstable
state, since there is no solution defined on the
transformations that must be integrated.
When there is a harmonization between several
entities and each entity has its relations and its links,
it is largely difficult to modify a relationship that is in
relationship with another relationship. Therefore, it is
largely difficult to manage an entity that is in
relationship with another from the strategic level to
the operational level (no matter if this goes bottom up
or top down). Then, when agility is back, this
dependency can pose a problem, beyond what
concerns the transformation itself. Hence, agility will
change the strategy that in turn will change the
process which in turn will change the IT.
5 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE
WORK
In conclusion, we consider it not so useful to have an
approach that just enforces transformation towards
agility. We are more interested in agility as quality of
something else – with regard to "things", which have
matured in the sense of becoming more agile over
time. From a practical point of view, it is also
important that we can even measure this. Given that,
companies are more likely to be agile to respond to
change, especially in the long run.
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