IS strategy development and implementation Essay

IS strategy development and implementation - Essay Example The IS strategy prioritizes the initiatives that are primarily designed to benefit the organization in the short run as well as investing in the long term projects. This IS strategy is like a plan or method that has been chosen in order to accomplish future goals of the organization. It helps in marshalling and planning resources for their most effective and efficient utilization. IS strategy defines competitive forces that determines the product or service ability of the organization to accomplish a strong strategic position in the market (Williams, 2007). For instance, the IS strategy in our case studies will determine competitive forces such as: entry, the ease of entry into the organizational market by other competitors, and whether they face some significant barriers. This will include barriers to market entry; threat of substitution, this will discuss whether there are particular services or products that can substitute the products and services of the organization in our case study; the bargaining power of the consumers, whether a small number of consumers are responsible for the better part of the organizational sales, and whether they can easily switch suppliers; the bargaining power of suppliers, whether the organization have various suppliers and whether there are substitutes to be used; and rivalry among the currently existing competitors, the intensity of the rivalry among the competitors and the way in which that competitors affect the ability of the organization to sustain profits. The developed IS strategy will deal with the above forces in both our case studies. According to Mr. Porter, a firm may take generic strategies in order to create much superior profits. Some of these strategies include: overall cost leadership, differentiation of products and services, and focus on the unique needs of the consumers. It is hence critical that organizations make clear strategy choices in their approach. This is what the implementation of IS strategy is l ikely to result in the organization. This paper therefore seeks to critically examine two main aspects of IS strategy development and/or implementation through the use of case studies to illustrate the arguments and conclusions. In so doing the paper will discuss how and why the IS strategy has been developed through the Venkatraman, and how and why the IS strategy has been implemented through ERP; CRM or MRP. The paper will do this through illustrating a literature review, explaining the two case studies and then giving a conclusion of the arguments in the paper. The case studies are of two different information technology firms that aim to address a serious economic organizational recession and plan the cuts in the public sector as well as the funding. The two firms are also looking up to achieving their long term goals using the IS strategy to be developed and implemented through the mechanism that will be described in this paper. Literature Review This section will illustrate ho w and why the IS strategy is developed as well as how and why the same strategy is implemented. According to the Strategic Alignment Model of Venkatraman, one determination that separates successful business from failed business is the ability to develop and analyze business strategy for success. Mastery of the steps of developing a strategy and creating a concrete business strategy approach to the business helps one to flourish with the business (Spinelli, 2005). The Strategic