Discussion: Financial Services Companies

Discussion: Financial Services Companies

Co‐Creating IT and Business Strategy This chapter has discussed the alignment of IT strategy with business strategy. Certainly, the two strategies must be carefully choreographed to ensure receiving maximum value from IT investments and obtaining the maximum opportunity to achieve the business strategy. However, in the fast‐paced business environment where information is increasingly a core component of the product or service offered by the fi rm, managers must co‐create IT and business strategy. That is to say that IT strategy is business strategy; one cannot be created independently of the other. In many cases, they are now one in the same.

For companies whose main product is information, such as fi nancial services companies, it ’ s clear that information management is the core of the business strategy itself. How an investment fi rm manages the clients ’ accounts, how its clients interact with the company, and how investments are made are all done through the management of information. A fi nancial services company must co‐create business and IT strategy. But consider a company like FedEx , most well known as the package delivery company. Are customers paying to have a package delivered or to have information about that package ’ s delivery route and timetable? One could argue that they are one in the same and that increasingly the company ’ s business strategy is its IS strategy. Certainly, there are components of the operation that are more than just information. There are actual packages to be loaded on actual trucks and planes, which are then actually delivered to their destinations. However, to make it all work, the company must rely on IS. Should the IS stop working or have a serious failure, FedEx would be unable to do business. A company like this must co‐create IT strategy and business strategy.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

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