The Forum August 2010 Issue

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FEATURED ARTICLE The Relationship Between ITIL® Processes and IT/Business Alignment
Your Passport to priSM Mauricio Corona, Senior Consultant Pink Elephant and Doctoral Candidate, La Salle
(CM) University
SERVICE MANAGEMENT Why is it that I hear everywhere that I go that IT/Business alignment is so
ARTICLES important? How can I get this alignment? Is it true that ITIL processes have an
The Ditch: "Everything I influence in IT/Business alignment?
ever needed to learn
about Service, as taught
by a Backhoe Operator" Addressing the dilemma of IT/Business alignment is an extremely important area to
The Relationship investigate. Research over the past three decades and recent studies have found a
Between ITIL® positive correlation between high levels of IT/Business alignment and high levels of
Processes and Competitive Advantage for Businesses (Luftman:2008).
IT/Business Alignment
Desperately Seeking Having identified the lack of alignment as a problem, researchers have proposed
Business and IT different alignment models and methodologies to help solve this riddle. (Hu and
Synchronicity Huang, 2005; Duffy, 2002; Marchand, Kettinger and Rollins, 2001; Bergeron,
Reducing OPEX to Raymond and Rivard, 2001; Maes, Rijsenbrij, Truijens and Gondola, 2000; Reich and
Fund Innovation Benbasat, 1996, 2000; Tallon and Kraemer, 1998; Teo and King, 1996, 1997;
Chapter 4: The Luftman, 2000; Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993) These findings add credence to
Continued Adventures the importance of achieving a high level of maturity in IT/Business alignment.
of Bob and Sue, "Help
when you need it?" Strategic alignment focuses on the activities that management performs to achieve
The ABC’s of ICT: Tool cohesive goals across the IT and other functional organizations (e.g., marketing, H/R,
for Engaging the manufacturing, finance). Therefore, alignment has to addresses both how IT is in
Business harmony with the business, and how the business should, or could be in harmony
ORGANIZATIONAL NEWS with IT.
IG NEWS: Greater
Cleveland LIG Offers So the answer to the question, “is it important to get IT/Business alignment?” is
Integrate 2010 and "YES", the business needs it. Next comes the next question, “how can I get
Meets with Great IT/Business alignment in my organization?” To answer this question a lot of people
Success & Greater LA
are turning to the promise of the ITIL® framework which ensures that, when it is used,
LIG Holds 4th Annual
the IT organizations can align, integrate, fuse, link or harmonize their IT organizations
Excellence in Service
with their businesses.
Management
Conference
EXIN's Michael This seems to be logical but it there is still limited quantitative and/or qualitative
McLaughlin Retires validity and we have not yet demonstrated a real conclusion to clearly and precisely
explain how IT Organizations can achieve the long awaited alignment with the
Search Back Issues business through ITIL. After all, how can a framework state this if there is no a single
Print This Article business around the world who can confirm that through ITIL they got IT/Business
alignment and if other businesses around the world adopt ITIL they will got it too?
Print All Articles
Return to Main Content In order to analyze this situation more precisely, I´ve been conducting research for
Page almost four years at La Salle University Research Center in Mexico City. The main
objective is to find if there is any kind of correlation between the maturity of some ITIL
processes and the maturity of the dimensions considered as part of the alignment
Submit an phenomenon.
Article The ITIL variables considered are:

Editor in Chief: 1. Financial Management
Tess DePalma 2. Service Level Management
3. Availability Management
Contributing Editors: 4. IT Service Continuity Management
Anil Balla 5. Capacity Management
Wendy Barrington 6. Incident Management
Kelli Black 7. Problem Management
Carlos Casanova 8. Change Management
Saurabh Dubey 9. Release & Deployment Management
Philip Hellerman 10. Service Asset & Configuration Management
Doug Hymel 11. Service Desk
Derek Madej
Hank Marquis
Robyn McGregor The alignment variable is based on the strategic alignment model by Dr. Luftman.
Silvia Siqueira This model was adopted and adapted to the context of this research, and the main
dimension variables considered are:

1. Communications Maturity: Effective exchange of ideas and a clear
understanding of what it takes to ensure successful strategies are high on the list of
enablers and inhibitors of alignment.

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2. Business Value Measurements Maturity: Too many IT organizations cannot
demonstrate their value to the business in terms that the business understands.
Frequently, business and IT value metrics differ. A balanced “dashboard” that
demonstrates the value of IT in terms of contribution to the Business is needed.

3. Governance Maturity: The considerations for IT governance include how the
authority for resources, risk, conflict resolution, and responsibility for IT is shared
among business partners, IT management and service providers. Project selection
and prioritization issues are included here. Ensuring that the appropriate business
and IT participants formally discuss and review the priorities and allocation of IT
resources is among the most important enablers or inhibitors of alignment.

4. Business Relationship Management Maturity: The relationship that exists
among the business and IT organizations is another criterion that ranks high among
the enablers and inhibitors of alignment. Giving the IT function the opportunity to have
an equal role in defining business strategies is obviously important, however, the way
in which each organization perceives the contribution of the other, the trust that
develops among the participants, ensuring appropriate business sponsors and
champions of IT endeavors, and the sharing of risks and rewards are all major
contributors to mature alignment.

5. Technology Scope Maturity: This set of criteria assesses the extent to which
IT is able to:

Go beyond the back office and the front office of the organization
Assume a role supporting a flexible infrastructure that is transparent to all
business partners and customers
Evaluate and apply emerging technologies effectively through services
Enable or drive business processes and strategies as a true standard
Provide customizable services to customer needs

6. Skills Maturity: This category encompasses all IT human resource
considerations, such as how to hire and fire, motivate, train and educate, and
organizational culture, going beyond the traditional considerations such as training,
salary, performance, feedback and career opportunities.

As the main objective of this article is just to get an overview of how to address these
questions, I will just mention the most important issues considered to conduct this
research.

Research Method

A cross-sectional design was employed, utilizing 12 survey assessment instruments
that were developed based on ITIL theory and the Strategic Alignment Model to
itSMF USA provide a representation of each organization’s alignment maturity level at the time of
proudly the study.
presents ...

our first Diamond Sponsor! Instrument Development

The alignment instrument was developed using Likert items for the scales to be able
to measure maturity levels . To assess the maturity of each variable all of the ITIL
instruments were developed using nominal scales and each item were assessed on a
dichotomous scale. The ITIL processes were operationalized as independent
variables and the alignment model operationalized as dependent variables through a
congruence matrix.

Pilot Tests of the Questionnaire

To determine whether the instruments demonstrated acceptable reliability a pilot test
was administered first to 15 IT and business executives within three different
businesses, revealing that all items were not interpreted as intended, so there were
some changes to the instruments and then administered to another 12 IT and
business executives. This time all items were interpreted as intended, resulting in no
changes to the final questionnaires. All the ITIL and Alignment questionnaires were
submitted to Cronbach’s alpha tests to be sure that the instruments were reliable.

Data Collection

The results in this article consider only the first analysis of the data, including

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approximately 425 ITIL and Alignment questionnaires in nine organizations
(Telecommunications, Outsourcing, Financial Services, and Government) across four
Latin American Countries.

Results

In order to get a correct interpretation of the results and ensure that they were able to
differentiate maturity levels among organizations with a positive correlation between
variables, descriptive statistic with cross tables, Chi square for goodness of fit and
Fisher tests were used.

Findings

IT Organizations that show a higher maturity in Financial Management
process also show a strong correlation with Businesses that have a higher
maturity levels in Business Value, Governance and Communication
dimensions respectively.

IT Organizations that show a higher maturity in Service Level Management
process show a strong correlation with Businesses that have a higher maturity
levels in Business Value, Governance, Business Relationship
Management and Communication dimensions respectively.

IT Organizations that show a higher maturity in Availability Management
levels in Business Value, Technology Scope and Governance dimensions
respectively.

IT Organizations that show a higher maturity in IT Service Continuity
Management process show a strong correlation with Businesses that have a
higher maturity levels in Business Value, Governance and Technology
Scope dimensions respectively.

IT Organizations that show a higher maturity in Capacity Management
levels in Technology Scope, Governance and Business Value dimensions
respectively.

IT Organizations that show a higher maturity in Incident Management
levels in Communication and Business Value dimensions respectively.

IT Organizations that show a higher maturity in Problem Management
levels in Technology Scope and Business Value dimensions respectively.

IT Organizations that show a higher maturity in Change Management
levels in Business Value, Governance and Technology Scope dimensions
respectively.

IT Organizations that show a higher maturity in Release and Deployment
Management process show a strong correlation with Businesses that have a
higher maturity levels in Technology Scope, Communication and
Business Value dimensions respectively.

IT Organizations that shows a higher maturity in Service Asset and
Configuration Management process shows a strong correlation with
Businesses that have a higher maturity levels in Governance and
Technology Scope dimensions respectively.

IT Organizations that show a higher maturity in Service Desk function show a
strong correlation with Businesses that have a higher maturity levels in
Communication, Business Value and Business Relationship
Management dimensions respectively.

Based on these results, the answer to the question “is it true that ITIL processes
have an influence in IT/Business alignment?” is that some ITIL processes have
shown a strong correlation in some, but not all, alignment dimensions.

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So I believe that there are two main questions you first have to answer for yourself to
know where you can begin to work around alignment:

1. What’s the outcome you are expecting from IT/Business Alignment?
2. In which dimensions does your business need you to focus?

Based on just the preview of these results, here are some additional questions as
food for thought:

1. Can Operational processes contribute to IT/business alignment vs. just
tactical/strategic processes?
2. Do I need to have a high maturity level in all of my processes to get the right
focus of alignment that my business is looking for?
3. Do I need to focus my efforts in all of the alignment dimensions at the same
time? Is it worth it?
4. Do I need a well defined strategy?
5. Do I need a well defined project?

While there are many conclusions one can draw from the research performed to date,
there is one conclusion that you really need to have in mind: you cannot get the
alignment by magic just by saying that you are implementing/adopting processes. You
really need to focus on what your business need from your IT organization so you can
start to work on your alignment strategy…and get real results.

About the Author

Mauricio Corona is a Doctoral Candidate, Professor at Master in IT for Business
Administration Program at Business School and Associate Researcher at Research
Center in La Salle University in Mexico City as well as Senior Consultant at Pink
Elephant.

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