Beware of pre-mature alignment initiatives

While a river of ink has been spilled on the issue of IT-business alignment, a new report suggests that most CIOs may be putting the cart in front of the horse. Bain & Company finds in a new study that companies that focus first on making their IT departments more effective, before tackling alignment, will grow faster and lower their costs. Companies that align first and worry about effectiveness later have a harder time growing and end up spending more on their IT operations. The reason? You have to really be good at IT before you can truly align IT with business. The study's authors suggest that IT shops that have not mastered all of the ins and outs of their own operations end up squandering resources on line-of-business strategies that are not well thought out or executed in a disciplined manner. Indeed, pre-mature alignment initiatives usually result in increased complexity and redundant IT operations.

For more about these findings:
- see the article in CIOInsight