Our work tells us that there is a strong correlation between the 'closeness' of the business and IT and successful business outcomes from IT investments.

Alignment is the term that is commonly used to describe how the IT system components map to the business objects. Enterprise architectures are frequently used for this mapping and we can clearly see from our work that the principles underlying how this is to be achieved (set out in 1978 and modified only slightly since then) are incomplete. In fact this explains many of the difficulties people have with alignment as it is currently defined, the many suggestions for its improvement  and why alignment is a rare occurrence even in otherwise world-class organisations.

The service based IT management framework enables us to more broadly and more comprehensively define what we mean by alignment and closeness and we use the term 'total alignment'. Rather than offering limited architectural alignment possibilities it offers a broad canvas of opportunity for the continuous improvement of the business and the IT services - not only now but in the long term. Specifically we can support you as shown below: