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Procedia Computer Science 138 (2018) 655–662

CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems /

ProjMAN
CENTERIS
- International
- International
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on Project
on ENTERprise
MANagement Information
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CENTERIS/ProjMAN/HCist 2018
Aligning Enterprise Systems Capabilities with Business Strategy:
Aligning Enterprise
An extension Systems
of the Capabilities
Strategic Alignmentwith Business
Model (SAM)Strategy:
using
An extension of theEnterprise
Strategic Alignment Model
Architecture (SAM) using
Enterprise Architecture
Prithvi Bhattacharya*
Prithvi Bhattacharya*
Higher Colleges of Technology, Dubai, UAE
Higher Colleges of Technology, Dubai, UAE

Abstract
Abstract
In the last decade, Enterprise Architecture (EA) has been proposed to have the potential to improve and support strategic
alignment
In the last between business and
decade, Enterprise IT. This paper
Architecture (EA) hasreviews
beenthe literature
proposed to on cross-domain
have the potentialstrategic alignment,
to improve as well
and support as on
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alignment Architecture, and presents
business and IT. aThisnewpaper
modelreviews
to depict
thestrategic
literaturealignment between business
on cross-domain strategic and IT by augmenting
alignment, as well as the on
widely cited
Enterprise Strategic Alignment
Architecture, and presentsModel (SAM)
a new modelwith an Enterprise
to depict strategicArchitecture framework,
alignment between The and
business OpenIT Group Architecture
by augmenting the
Framework
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this paper
withisan
thatEnterprise
it intendsArchitecture
to present a framework,
holistic, generic
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Open Group Architecturethe
SAM with the
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(TOGAF). of TOGAF to present
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more comprehensive
is that it intendstechnique of modelling
to present a holistic, strategic alignment
generic model of business and
by synthesizing the
IT. Also,
SAM withthe
themodel illustrates
constructs this using
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to present Systems
a more as the chosen
comprehensive IT platform.
technique Subsequently,
of modelling strategicthe proposedofmodel
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model illustrates case
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using and theSystems
Enterprise results will be chosen
as the presented in anotherSubsequently,
IT platform. paper. the proposed model will be
tested using empirical data from case studies and the results will be presented in another paper.
© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
©
© 2018
This The
is an
2018 The Authors.
open accessPublished
Authors. by
by Elsevier
article under
Published Ltd.
the CC BY-NC-ND
Elsevier Ltd. license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
This is an
Selection open access article
and peer-review under the CC BY-NC-ND
of the license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
This is an open access articleunder
underresponsibility
the CC BY-NC-ND scientific
license committee of the CENTERIS - International Conference
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ) on
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the CENTERIS - International Conference on
ENTERprise
Selection and Information
peer-review Systems
under / ProjMAN of
responsibility - International
the scientificConference
committee on
of Project
the MANagement
CENTERIS - / HCist Conference
International - Internationalon
ENTERprise Information Systems / ProjMAN - International Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference
Conference
ENTERprise
on Health andonInformation
HealthCare
Social and Social Care
Systems
Information Information
/ ProjMAN
Systems and - Systems and Technologies.
International
Technologies. Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International
Conference on Health and Social Care Information Systems and Technologies.
Keywords: Enterprise Architecture, Strategic Alignment, Enterprise Systems
Keywords: Enterprise Architecture, Strategic Alignment, Enterprise Systems

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +971508631242.

* E-mail Prithvi.bhatt@gmail.com
address:author.
Corresponding Tel.: +971508631242.
E-mail address: Prithvi.bhatt@gmail.com
1877-0509 © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open
1877-0509 access
© 2018 Thearticle under
Authors. the CC BY-NC-ND
Published license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection
This is an and
openpeer-review under
access article responsibility
under of the scientific
the CC BY-NC-ND licensecommittee of the CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Information
Selection andSystems / ProjMAN
peer-review - InternationalofConference
under responsibility on committee
the scientific Project MANagement / HCist -- International
of the CENTERIS International Conference
Conference on
on ENTERprise
Health and Social
Care Information
Information Systems
Systems and Technologies.
/ ProjMAN - International Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference on Health and Social
Care Information Systems and Technologies.
1877-0509 © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise
Information Systems / ProjMAN - International Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference on Health and
Social Care Information Systems and Technologies.
10.1016/j.procs.2018.10.087
656 Prithvi Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 138 (2018) 655–662
2 Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000

1. Introduction

The strategic potential of IT has been a topic of great interest for several decades. One of the ways in which this
potential can be realized is through the strategic alignment of IT with the business (Chan and Reich 2007; Sabherwal
and Chan 2001; Reich and Benbasat 2000; Gerow et al., 2014). Indeed, strategic alignment has been consistently
ranked as one of the top concerns for senior IT management in surveys by the Society for Information Management
(Brancheau, Janz, and Wetherbe 1996; Gottschalk 2000; Kearns and Lederer 2004; Tallon and Kraemer 2003; Byrd,
Lewis, Bryan 2006 Luftman and Ben-Zvi 2010; Kappelman and Luftman 2013; Kappelman et al. 2014; Chan,
Sabherwal, and Thatcher 2006; Gerow et al., 2014).In the last decade, Enterprise Architecture (EA) has been
proposed as a guiding solution for firms’ IT investments - one that has the potential to improve and support strategic
alignment (Wegmann 2002; Chen et al. 2005, Pereira and Sousa 2005; Ross, Weill, and Robertson 2006; Gregor,
Hart and Martin 2007; Cuenca, Boza, and Ortiz 2011; Zarvic and Wieringa 2014). The purpose of this paper is to
explain and illustrate how EA can be used by organizations in their pursuit of strategic alignment.
The primary intended contribution of this paper is to provide a theoretically-supported prescriptive mechanism
through which strategic alignment can be made possible using an EA framework. While some studies endeavour to
explain the mechanism of how EA can promote strategic alignment (Bleistein et al., 2006; Fritscher and Pigneur
2011), these studies are limited in one or more of the following three ways. First, these models are developed for
specific organizations, with no generalizable model presented that can be applied in other organizations. Second,
these frameworks show uni-directional traceability, starting with business strategic objectives and explaining the
implementation of them using IT capabilities. Traceability is not shown in the opposite direction (Agarwal and
Sambamurthy 2002; Chan and Reich 2007; Smaczny 2001; Benbya and McKelvey 2006). Third, the majority of the
studies fail to focus on the specific types of IT that can be used to improve strategic alignment. In essence, we aim to
answer the following question in this research:
“Can Enterprise Architecture help firms achieve and maintain cross-domain strategic alignment of business and
IT? And if so, how?”

2. Literature Review

Researchers have studied the challenges that organizations face in attaining a high degree of cross-domain
alignment between business strategy and IT infrastructure and processes. The key challenges include: that business
strategy is often unknown and ambiguous or difficult to implement (Baets, 1992; Reich and Benbasat, 2000), that
top management does not understand the importance of alignment or the contribution IT can make to the business
(Henderson and Venkatraman 1993; Robey and Boudreau 1999; Campbell, 2005), and that the business
environment is dynamic and rapidly changing (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993; Van Der Zee and De Jong
1999). A number of implications have been observed as arising from these challenges. When business strategy is
either unknown, ambiguous, or rigidly fixed, IT purchases are haphazard rather than purposeful, leading to
inefficiency (Baets 1992). When there is a disconnect between the IT management team and the top management
team (a group often without an IT representative) there is a lack of understanding of the strategic potential of IT
(Robey and Boudreau 1999; Campbell, 2005). And in environments characterized by dynamism and hyper-
competition, it is a daunting task to align IT capabilities to the ever-changing business strategy (Van Der Zee and De
Jong 1999). In spite of this foregoing research, and in spite of the identification of challenges to cross-domain
alignment, the mechanisms for aligning business strategy with IT infrastructure and processes remain under-
investigated. Neither the aforementioned studies on finding important factors for alignment, nor the research that
led to the Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) by Henderson and Venkatraman (1993), nor the MIT 1990s
Framework, specify the mechanism or pathway through which a high degree of such alignment can be achieved.
Restated, these studies leave a key issue unaddressed: the identification of a process to achieve cross-domain
alignment between a firm’s overall business strategy and its IT infrastructure and processes.

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is defined as “a coherent whole of principles, methods and models that are used in
the design and realisation of the enterprise’s organisational structure, business processes, information systems, and
infrastructure.” (Jonkers et al. 2006, p. 64). Architecture models, views, presentations, and analyses all help to
 Prithvi Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 138 (2018) 655–662 657
Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000 3

bridge the communication gap between architects and stakeholders (Lankhorst 2013). EA is implemented using
several standards and frameworks, including the Zachman’s Framework, The Open Group Architecture Framework
(TOGAF), Four Domain Architecture, Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP), OMG’s
Model Driven Architecture (MDA), Department of Defence Architecture Framework (DoDAF), Generic
Architecture Reference and Methodology (GERAM), and the Nolan Nortan Framework (Lankhorst 2013). Given
that EA is intended to shape the development of IS and IT infrastructure, as well as the formation of processes in
light of a firm’s strategy, we observe that EA offers a potential guiding solution framework to help firms realize
higher levels of cross-domain alignment.
For instance, the ‘SEAM’ paradigm was proposed as a systemic paradigm to improve existing EA frameworks and
methodologies and to find explanations for the practical problems encountered by enterprise architects (Wegmann
2002). Elsewhere, the Business IT Alignment Method (BITAM) has been applied to reveal twelve steps for
managing, detecting, and correcting misalignment (Chen et. al 2005). A requirements engineering framework that
demonstrates how an organization's IT requirements can be aligned with its business strategy has been presented and
illustrated (Bleistein et al. 2006). Similarly, a firm’s physical business and IS/IT elements, along with their
connective relationships, has been shown to enable strategic alignment (Gregor, Hart and Martin, 2007).
Furthermore, a research study synthesizing business modelling and EA has used the TOGAF EA framework and the
Business Model Canvas (BMC) technique to model alignment (Fritscher and Pigneur 2011). Ways to extend cross-
domain strategic alignment beyond the organizational boundary to include its value chain partners have been
discussed as well (Cuenca, Boza, and Ortiz 2011). Elsewhere, a study shows how both inter-organizational and
intra-organizational strategic alignment can be achieved (Derzsi and Gordijn 2006). Hinkelmann et al (2016)
proposed a new paradigm in the context of enterprise information systems for the continuous alignment of business
and IT for the agile enterprise. Jansen (2017) explored how the alignment of an ‘ArchiMate-based’ enterprise
architecture model can be monitored using Semantic Web Technology. In spite of this important work, each of the
aforementioned studies are nevertheless limited in that their conclusions are specific to the organizations being
studied. Further, while an integrated EA approach has been presented by synthesizing four distinct EA frameworks
(Zarvic and Wieringa 2014), and while an exploratory study among 162 EA professionals was used to identify meta-
models for four specific types of strategic alignment situations (Saat, Franke, Lagerström and Ekstedt 2010;Niemi
and Pekkola 2017), both of these studies show how to achieve alignment starting with business strategy and leading
to IT capabilities. The same issue appears in a conceptualization of Enterprise Modeling and EA (Seigerroth 2011).
None of these studies explain how alignment can be improved by working in the opposite direction from IT
capabilities inform business strategy. Thus, another limitation of existing research is an assumption of
unidirectional traceability from business strategy to IT infrastructure and processes. This research stream can be
enriched by examining ways in which IT can influence strategy and creating new strategic opportunities (Agarwal
and Sambamurthy 2002; Chan and Reich 2007; Smaczny 2001; Benbya and McKelvey 2006). However, one study
by Malyzhenkov and Inavova (2017) did attempt at providing a practical guidance for IT-business alignment as well
as a strategic guidance for EA development by integrating traditional Strategic Alignment Model and The TOGAF
framework. Additionally, each of the aforementioned studies refer to IT in general and do not specify any particular
kind of IT that was explored for strategic alignment. The study we now describe represents an attempt to
supplement existing research and address these limitations.

3. Towards a New Model for Cross Domain Strategic Alignment using Enterprise Architecture

In an attempt to address the limitations in the current literature, we now propose a theoretically-supported
prescriptive model to explain how cross-domain strategic alignment can be pursued using the TOGAF Enterprise
Architecture Framework. This framework is chosen because it is one of the most widely accepted EA frameworks
and has been used in studies to link strategic goals and value proposition of an organization to organizational
processes and technology (Chen et al., 2005, Bleistein et al., 2006, Derzsi and Gordijn, 2006, Tallon 2007). Our
model is based on the Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) of Henderson and Venkataraman (1993), which suggests 4
constructs: Business Strategy, Business Infrastructure and Processes, IT Strategy and IT Infrastructure and
Processes. We focus in this paper specifically on cross-domain alignment between Business Strategy and IT
Infrastructure and Processes, placing the other two constructs and other types of alignment outside the scope of this
658 Prithvi Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 138 (2018) 655–662
4 Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000

research. The reason is that this cross-domain alignment and especially in the direction suggested, has been found to
be most relevant for industry, yet under-studied in academia. Other types of alignment can be addressed by a future
research and results thereof published in a subsequent paper.We extend the SAM model by incorporating the
concepts of a widely-used framework for Enterprise Architecture: TOGAF. TOGAF is a framework to guide the
design and implementation of an enterprise architecture in an organization (togaf.org). The new model introduces
several layers within and connecting the two constructs from the SAM ‘IT Infrastructure & Processes’ and ‘Business
Strategy’. These are the following: technology layer, applications layer, business layer and motivation layer; these
layers correspond to the TOGAF phases of ‘technology’, ‘information systems’, ‘business’, and ‘architecture vision’
respectively. The proposed model is shown in Figure 1 and the constructs of the model are explained in Table 1.The
table below defines each of the constructs of the above model.

Table 1. Definitions of the Constructs of the Model

Construct/Sub- Definition
construct
Business Strategy How a business organization aims to achieve the ultimate ‘end’: maximizing the returns of the owners/shareholders of the
business
Motivation The means through which the organization can achieve its ‘end’; Structured in a hierarchy of strategic
Layer orientations/drivers, goals, and objectives; drivers are decomposed to goals and goals are decomposed to objectives.
Organizations can choose one or more of the six ‘strategic orientations’ or ‘drivers’ to achieve their mission. Drivers are
these six strategic orientations:
Drivers Aggressiveness, Proactiveness, Defensiveness, Analysis, Futurity & Riskiness.
The high level things that organizations aim, given their ‘Driver’ :
Goals In Aggressiveness, the main goal is Market Penetration
In Proactiveness, the main goals are Product Development, Market Development and Inorganic Growth.
In Defensiveness, the main goal is Operational Efficiency
In Futurity, the main goal is Diversification
In Analysis, the main goal is Astute Strategic Decisions
The more tangible things to ultimately attain the ‘Goals’. These include (but are not limited to):
Objectives Market Penetration through: Price Reduction; Increase in promotion, Increase in Customer Satisfaction.
Product Development through: Offering new products.
Market Development through: Selling to different customer segments, Local and Global Expansion.
Inorganic Growth through: Mergers and Acquisitions.
Operational Efficiency through: Decrease in Direct and Indirect Costs
Diversification through offering new products to new markets.
Strategic Decisions through Internal and External Assessments
IT Infrastructure & The information technology capabilities an organization has in place
Processes
Technology Layer The IT platform that an organization has in place including different nodes or devices and software servers. For this
study, we focus on Enterprise System only
Applications Layer Consists of the Enterprise System, that are composed of in-built functional units called ‘modules’ like Financials, Human
Resources, Sales and Distribution, Materials etc. The applications layer also shows the different application services that
are offered by the application(s):
Integration Data and Systems
Optimized and Standardized Processes
Information and Analytics
Multi-Country Support
Standardized Organizational Structures
Business Layer The business capabilities connect the ‘Applications Layer’ to the ‘Motivation Layer’. These include
Campaign Management
Better Fulfilment of Orders/Requests
Lean Production
Automation of Supply Chain
Organizational Communication
Consolidated IT Infrastructure and external systems
Business Analytics

The purpose of this model is to show how cross-domain strategic alignment is achieved by linking the ‘IT
Infrastructure & Processes’ to ‘Business Strategy’, by traversing the different layers, as shown in Figure 1.
 Prithvi Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 138 (2018) 655–662 659
Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000 5

Fig 1. A Model for Cross-Domain Business IT Strategic Alignment (based on SAM by Henderson and Venkataraman (1993))

On one hand, the ‘IT Infrastructure and Processes contains the ‘Technology Layer’ that provides the technology
(namely the Enterprise System). Enterprise Systems (ES) are large-scale, packaged, application software systems
that can be used to streamline and integrate the business processes of an organization (Davenport 2004). The
technology layer describes the logical software and hardware capabilities, including IT infrastructure, middleware,
networks, communications, processing, and standards. This layer, in turn, enables the technological capabilities
depicted by the ‘Applications Layer’. These are optimized and standardized processes, integrated data and systems,
information and analytics, multi-country support and standardized organizational structures (Davenport 2004).
On the other hand, the ‘Business Strategy’ construct contains the ‘Motivations Layer’. The Motivations Layer is
structured as a hierarchy of levels, based on a combination of concepts proposed by Archimate and Business
Motivation Model, and supported by several researchers like Beistein et al (2006), Feglar (2006), Quartel,
Engelsman, Jonkers, & Van Sinderen, (2009), Fritscher and Pigneur (2011), and Clark, Barn, Oussena (2012). These
levels are discussed as follows. The ‘end’ state of most business organizations is maximizing the benefits/returns of
the owners/shareholders of the business, and measured by the Return on Equity (RoE), also called Return on Net
Worth (RoNW) as suggested by Tully et al (1993), Hitt & Brynjollson (1996) Barua et al (1995). To achieve this
ultimate ‘end’, different organizations employ different ‘means’ that form the first level: ‘Drivers’ or ‘Strategic
Orientations’. This can be comprehensively depicted by a widely cited framework called the Strategic Orientation of
Business Enterprises (STROBE) by Venkatraman (1989) that propose six strategic orientations: Aggressiveness,
Proactiveness, Defensiveness, Analysis, Futurity and Riskiness. However, the Riskiness orientation has more to do
with individual traits of an employee, and also its essence is captured in the other orientations; so this is being
excluded from our model. The second level shows how the different Strategic Orientations/Drivers mentioned in the
above level can be translated in the form of different high level ‘Goals’. These are based on the explanations given
by Venkatraman (1989) and used in combination with the terms used in Ansoff’s (1957) widely used ‘Product-
Market Strategy’. The third level shows how the different ‘Goals’ mentioned in the above level can be realized
through more specific, achievable, measurable ‘Objectives’. These again are based on the explanations given by
Venkatraman (1989) and used in combination with the terms used in Ansoff’s (1957) widely used ‘Product-Market
Strategy’. The Strategic Orientations/Drivers, Goals and Objectives are defined in Table 1. Furthermore, the
TOGAF EA architecture describes a business layer that exists between the Business Strategy and IT Infrastructure
and Processes constructs: a layer that is key to understanding how business strategy is enacted in IT processes and
infrastructure, and how IT processes and infrastructure can open up new strategic possibilities. The model proposes
that linkage is achieved through the ‘Business Layer’ as an intermediary. The Business Layer facilitates cross
domain strategic alignment by linking the (a) IT Infrastructure and Processes (shown in the Application Layer, as
made available by the Technology Layer) and (b) the Business Strategy of the organizations, as attained through its
objectives, goals, strategic orientations (shown in the Motivation Layer). This is postulated as below:
Proposition PA: The Applications Layer enables the Business Layer
Proposition PB: The Business Layer enables the Motivations Layer
660 Prithvi Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 138 (2018) 655–662
6 Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000

Such linking can be done one at a time, item by item (as defined in Table 1) from each of the three layers. This is
illustrated using an example proposition as below: PA1: ES-enabled Optimized and standardized processes enables
Campaign Management and PB1: Campaign Management enables Product Promotion
A Marketing Campaign is a coordinated series of steps that can include promotion of a product through different
mediums (television, radio, print, online) using a variety of different types of advertisements, demonstrations, and
other interactive activities. There exist dedicated modules for campaign management in Enterprise Systems from the
leading vendors like SAP and Oracle. These modules come with built-in processes so that organizations can analyze,
plan, execute, and measure marketing activities through all inbound and outbound interaction channels. They can
implement inbound and outbound campaigns that are multi-channel and multi-wave, and they can develop and
execute the best marketing strategy by using constraint-based optimization techniques to determine the best
marketing mix (Goodhue et. al 2002; Rigby and Ledingham 2004; Bligh and Turk 2004). So, ES-enabled optimized
and standardized processes leads to Campaign Management (PA1).
On the other hand, Product Promotion refers to raising customer awareness of a product or brand, generating sales,
and creating brand loyalty. It is one of the four basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four P's:
price, product, promotion, and place. It is well established in the marketing literature that marketing campaigns are a
means used widely for product promotion (Mitchell 2002; Pracejus and Olsen 2004). The above-discussed ‘Business
Layer’ capability of campaign management enabled by the ‘Applications Layer’ capability of optimized and
standardized processes from the ‘Technology Layer’ of Enterprise Systems thus contributes to achieve the
‘Motivation Layer- objective’ of Product Promotion. So, ES-enabled optimized and standardized processes
(Applications Layer) enables Campaign Management (Business Layer) -PA1 , and that, in turn, enables Product
Promotion (Motivation Layer) - PB1 . Further, as shown in the figure, the ‘Motivation Layer- objective’ of Product
Promotion, in turn, is expected to realize the ‘Motivation Layer- goal’ of Market Penetration, i.e., (a) existing
customers in the market will buy more of the products and (b) more customers in the market will buy the products
(Ansoff 1957). This is what is desired in the ‘Motivation Layer- driver’ of Aggressiveness business strategy. This is
one (of the many) path(s) by which Strategic Alignment of Business and IT is achieved through Enterprise Systems.
Similarly, Enterprise Systems (Technology Layer) enables Information and Analytics (Application Layer) and leads
to Business Analytics (Business Layer), that leads to Price Reduction (Motivation Layer- objective) that eventually
leads to Market Penetration (Motivation Layer- goal), that in turn leads to fulfilling the Aggressiveness (Motivation
Layer- driver) business strategy. So, ES-enabled Information and Analytics (Applications Layer) leads to Business
Analytics -PA2; and that in turn leads to Price Reduction- PB2.
Again, Enterprise Systems (Technology Layer) enables Optimized Processes (Application Layer) leads to Better
Fulfilment of Orders/ Requests (Business Layer), that leads to Customer Satisfaction (Motivation Layer- objective)
that eventually leads to Market Penetration (Motivation Layer- goal), that in turn leads to fulfilling the
Aggressiveness (Motivation Layer- driver) business strategy. This eventually leads to Market Development
(Motivation Layer- goal), that in turn leads to fulfilling the Proactiveness (Motivation Layer- driver) business
strategy. So, ES-enabled Optimized Processes (Applications Layer) lead to Better Fulfilment of Orders/ Requests
(Business Layer) –PA3 ; and that in turn leads to Customer Satisfaction (Motivation Layer) - PB3.The intention is
to uncover, using empirical data from case studies, many more such links that illustrate our propositions PA and PB,
and explain each of them.

4. Conclusion

This paper presented a new, enhanced cross-domain strategic alignment model, based on the SAM. The contribution
of this paper is that it augmented the existing SAM with the constructs of an Enterprise Architecture framework
namely TOGAF to present a more comprehensive technique of modelling strategic alignment between business and
IT. This new model attempts to define a clear, step-by-step mapping of how an IT investment can support, shape or
realize the business strategy of an organization. It is a generic model that can be tailored to suit different
organizations, as shown by the illustrations PA1-3 and PB1-3. However, this paper aims to pave way for further
research to elaborate and empirically test the knowledge claims that link the ‘Application Layer’ to the ‘Business
Layer’ to the ‘Motivation Layer’ of the model to establish evidence of its validity. Such research can be used as a
prescriptive framework to (a) model, and (b) achieve strategic alignment between business and IT in a wide range of
organizations. Furthermore, the intention is to explore the other two constructs of the model, namely ‘IT Strategy’
and ‘Business Infrastructure and Processes’, for future research.
 Prithvi Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 138 (2018) 655–662 661
Bhattacharya / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000 7

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