any changing in the Network strategy or policy must be provide to the IT stuff except technical or critical

Dear Goyal, thank you so much for tackling such very critical issue...Indeed am interested in this area as well, and could collaborate further. Yes I think IS strategy should derive business strategy in the existence of cloud computing as exploring such Tech alert business situations.

Infact, I am also of the strong opinion that IT strategy need to be derived from the business but sometimes the disruptive technologies like Internet may force business to derive business strategy from IT.

Hi Goyal...

My view is that IT Strategy should NOT be dependent on Business Strategy. Furthermore, IT strategy should in itself be at executive board level and not reporting to board level via a business strategy. Reason I say this is that if the business strategy fails, then so will the IT strategy….but when IT becomes a ‘shared view’ whereby it is a strategy on its own, then the dynamics change. Sometimes, it is a good IT strategy that can generate a good business strategy. …Picture an equilateral triangle…the top of the triangle is ‘business goals’ and the ‘IT strategy on the left side and ‘Business strategy” on the right side. Its about balance….. IT must be viewed as its own strategic resource and not as a business support tool…

Also see Chen et. al 2010-Information Systems Strategy…http://aisel.aisnet.org/misq/vol34/iss2/4/…. for a comprehensive explanation of my view….it will make more sense why I have this view…

Thank you Prof Sachin for your views on the subject. It makes a lot of sense that we need to understand IT as a strategic resource.

Hi Mr. Goyal...not Prof yet :-).... currently completing PHD this year...

glad to help..your insights are also good along with the rest of the learned people

Business Strategy is the mother of all other RESOURCES.... Every Project Management has to effectively handle the optimization of its resources deployed to a meaningful and expected end...IT Strategy though it has its framework, its voluminisation depends on the accommodation of the wish factor leveraged into the project...

I shall share some of my personal experience...in 2006, I was in Uganda, as the country's Project and Change Manger of Oracle while implementation of ORACLE e-business suite to UPDF's integrated Resource Management Information System (IRMIS)... though as per the RFP the requirement looked basic.... the business requirement upon iteration of business need analysis yielded to multi-millions....As that was the Oracle's largest number of license (200 thousand) sale, it took different turns...

So, IT Strategy can never exist by itself and depends completely on the business demands, bringing in reliability and confidentially to the process, data and information - both in access and use...

The fundamental point here is that IT is merely an enabling mechanism (albeit a primary one) for attaining business goals. The extent to which organisations fund their IT is determined by the return that the investment is projected to bring, assessed in terms of business performance, or reliable proxy measures. Unless driven by and continually focused on business strategies, IT strategies risk adversely impacting (and, at worst, undermining) ROI. None of this means that IT doesn’t and shouldn’t shape business process, though. An enlightened business strategy brings about organisational agility, by explicitly encouraging business goal-oriented innovation in its enabling mechanisms.

There is an underlying megatrend that says two crucial things are happening:

1) data is a recognisable measurable, valuable, resource

2) everything and anything can be virtualised

The result of these two trends is that any business process can be mimicked and lifted by a competitor resulting in revenue loss from the traditional business model lines of business.

I don't see any separation between a business strategy and an IT strategy

Strategy is strategy:

defend revenue,

open new revenue opportunities,

make it happen

There is an underlying megatrend that says two crucial things are happening:

1) data is a recognisable measurable, valuable, resource

2) everything and anything can be virtualised

The result of these two trends is that any business process can be mimicked and lifted by a competitor resulting in revenue loss from the traditional business model lines of business.

I don't see any separation between a business strategy and an IT strategy

Strategy is strategy:

defend revenue,

open new revenue opportunities,

make it happen

IT strategies should enable a diverse work environment regardless of the business. All businesses have activities and processes that are governed by humans and machine interfaces. Developing an IT system for only one specific business process will immediately make you a legacy system that cannot survive the fast pace changes of todays global markets. Instead the IT systems should be in place for flexible responses to current changes in the marketplace. This is why Cloud and SOA and other concepts are starting to resonate with organizations; but many of them fail because the legacy systems prevail. In my opinion we should start with any new requirements being built within a flexible IT Enterprise Architecture where we have a common user interface with all data and applications interoperable. But what happens in most cases is that these requirements are not sent to this new framework but are included in older legacy IT systems and then become configuration nightmares for organization as they have to keep building new staffs and middleware for them to integrate. Just my view as I have seen it play out in the US Defense Department.