31245 Business Process and IT Strategy

Requisite(s): 31266 Introduction to Information Systems

A major concern of business is the search for competitive advantage. At the same time businesses are forming partnerships in a variety of ways, such as outsourcing, mutual service provision and virtual organisations. For IT managers this raises a number of complex issues not easily understood with conventional analysis methods. However, it is known that two ways of improving advantage and collaboration are through business process transformation (BPT) and strategic information planning (SIP) which lead, in part, to IS/Business alignment. In this subject, traditional theories and methods of BPT and SIP are presented, together with some of the problems that many organisations have encountered with these methods and obtaining IS/Business alignment. Students are required to examine these problems using techniques taught in class, develop hypotheses on how these could be addressed and then present their findings in both oral and written form.