Organization and IT Strategic Alignment, Determination of IT Process Priorities using COBIT 5

Abstract

The role of information technology (IT) for many organizations today is not just a supporting role, but already has strategic role as an organizational enabler. Organizations that do not utilize information systems and technology will inevitably be unable to compete in fierce business competition and satisfy customers. Therefore companies need to align organizational strategies with IT strategies in order to achieve organizational goals. However, it is often difficult for organizations to translate their business strategy into an appropriate IT strategy. There a needs to be an appropriate, comprehensive and easy approach for organizations to be able to align organizational and IT strategies. COBIT 5 provides a fairly generic, comprehensive and easy approach to doing this. The approach is expected to provide guidance on aligning organizational and IT strategies while providing direction at the operational level for organizations to identify the IT business processes that suit their needs and determine their priority levels. COBIT 5 is best practices framework, provides a reference guide for IT governance and management processes, in total 37 processes. This research takes the object of a company in the field of sales & distribution of mechanical and electrical products and services, which are quite competitive that seeks to implement appropriate IT strategies to support the achievement of their organizational goals. In the implementation of IT governance and management, the company found difficulty to determine priority of which IT processes need to be implemented first in order to be aligned with the organization and IT strategy, due to their limited resources. This study can help companies align their business and IT strategies and can provide priority proposals for IT business processes that companies should implement. By using COBIT 5 approach, companies can map IT process priorities based on mapping of organizational goals, IT objectives and IT processes. The results of this study are IT process priorities recommended for the company: Manage IT Risk, Manage IT Programs and Projects, Manage Change Acceptance and Transitioning, Manage IT Security, Manage IT Changes, Manage IT Services Operations, Manage IT Portfolios, and Manage Availability and Capacity.