Planning information systems strategy in the firm, based on business needs

Summary form only as given. Strategic planning for the firm has taken hold strongly in most large firms over the past decade or two. The financial targets in such plans can be readily phrased in terms directly related to sales volume, costs, profits and other metrics. However, when it comes to supporting functions, such as R&D, information systems and human resources, the metrics and targets become, of necessity, vague and general. The authors have worked on improving this situation in the research and development (R&D) field for many years with a wide range of companies and not-for-profit organisations engaged in R&D, and supporting R&D. More recently, they have developed methods of planning for other kinds of technology management applications-primarily in the field of information technology in the firm. The vehicle for this consulting effort has been a procedure developed by the senior strategy group (SSG) for strategic planning of the programs of information systems (IS) departments in a variety of industries and firms. This effort is aimed at the current lack of adequate planning of IS activities in direct relation to the business needs of the firm and using those relationships to derive credible and usable metrics to evaluate the performance and impacts of IS outputs on the firm. This paper describes several of their consulting engagements aimed at overcoming this situation in the information systems area and providing an effective means of developing and applying metrics to its outputs and impacts