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May 7, 2002

IT-Business Alignment: Week 5

BAP Strategic Planning and IS Finance — "From High-Level to Detail"

So far I've covered a lot of ground on establishing, organizing, and marketing an IT-business alignment within a company. This week, I'm focusing on the specific roles and responsibilities of two of the key BAP team areas: strategic planning and finance. (I'll cover the largest business-requirements-and-analysis (BAP) area in the next installment.

Strategic Planning

Remember the BAP pyramid? Jesse Reed is at the top of the pyramid for a good reason.

He's the go-to guy for retail IT information. He knows all and sees all. And if it has anything to do with retail, specifically how IT can help retail, he's heard of it and can probably get you a two-page synopsis on the subject within 24 hours.

Reed's first job is to work with Mills and his senior leadership team (SLT), as well as people from the business to maintain the IS Strategic Plan. This is a continuation of the work the IS SLT did at the off-site meeting. Strategic plans these days often have the shelf life of bread and they need frequent attention. Reed will adjust the plan, as needed, based on changes to the business.

In addition to maintaining the plan, Reed serves as a sort of hybrid advance guard and intelligence guru for HomeWorks' IS department. He constantly looks for new ideas that could benefit the company. At the same time, he helps business folks flesh out their ideas.

Executive Summary

Having a strong team is essential to any IT-business alignment — but what does the core BAP team actually do on a daily basis? And how does it affect the company? In this week's entry, Ted Kingston explains the day-to-day responsibilities of two key BAP team areas: strategic planning and finance.

Cast of Characters

Click here to meet our cast of characters.

In companies like HomeWorks, more ideas get generated than can ever be executed. And before Reed's position existed, the process was spontaneous, unfocused, and often contradictory. Now, Reed's main job is to separate the wheat from the chaff in order to help Mills and the other executives determine what is best for the company from an IT perspective.

Cell Phones Can't Shop Yet

Most of these new IT ideas stem from conversations on airplanes, retail conferences, meetings with vendors and business partners, what our competition is doing, various magazine articles, or even television commercials.

For example, a commercial might show a mobile phone being used to purchase a Coke from a vending machine. It's a great retail concept, but before HomeWorks can even begin to think of implementing something like this, several questions must be answered: Is this concept really implementable? Are real companies really providing this service? How much will it cost to implement? Is there a demand for this service? And what are the true benefits?

That's where Reed comes in.

Hype-Busters

Before BAP was established, IS accepted a lot of these types of retail concepts in a knee jerk fashion and began developing them before the actual costs, benefits, and technical and business challenges were understood. A lot of time and effort would be put forth by IS and the business before it was discovered that those flashy commercials never mentioned the fact that it'll take three years and $7 million to make it possible for people to buy a product out of a vending machine. Assuming, we even wanted them to!