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Abstract—This paper describes demand management and its enterprise. This way, the CIO is able to identify, promote and
strategic planning life cycle as related to a company’s businesses. implement significant business change initiatives.
A key to good demand management is to know the demand
management process life cycle, starting with strategic planning. CIOs, along with the chief executive officer (CEO) and the
Strategic planning is important for aligning an enterprise’s IT board of directors, are responsible for enterprise strategic
and business goals in order to successfully complete projects on planning.
schedule and on budget. This way effective strategic demand
Strategic planning is one of the key business process stages
management will be feasible. To achieve these goals, senior
and is directly related to the demand process life cycle stages.
business executives must liaise well with the CIO responsible for
managing IT. The CIO will participate very actively with other senior
executive members to develop business planning, thus ensuring
CIOs are currently playing a very important role in decision- that demand management is efficient.
making of the company's business and are responsible for Section 1 is an introduction setting out the importance of IT
strategic initiatives to help with strategic planning and strategic demand management for achieving the business
identifying opportunities for automation to improve business
strategic planning objectives.
processes and reduce costs of investment in IT.
According to the classification of demand [1], (1) strategic
Keywords-component; Demand Process Life Cycle, Strategic demand, (2) tactical demand and (3) operational demand,
Demand, Strategic Planning, Strategic Alignment, IT – Business strategic demand is the hardest to manage. This is why the CIO
Objectives Alignme. and the board of directors require thorough business knowledge
to implement and carry out a very detailed planning. This
I. INTRODUCTION article presents the importance of strategic planning in the
Information technology (IT) strategy varies from one organization by aligning the IT goals with business objectives,
organization to another, and it must apply to all IT as well as a model for establishing priorities for projects and IT
departments. The IT departments are managed by the chief resources.
information officer (CIO). Section 2 defines strategic demand and the demand process
The best CIOs use a set of sophisticated techniques to life cycle. Section 3 presents strategic planning, CIO skills and
develop strategies and ensure that the routine IT operations strategic planning activities. Section 4 discusses strategic
work properly at the least possible cost, giving added value to alignment. The last section lists the conclusions.
the enterprise. Released from routine operating problems, they
are free to focus on maintaining effective working relationships II. ESTRATEGIC DEMAND
to create thorough business knowledge, recruiting the best Strategic demand is managed through the project portfolio.
talent for their team, and maintaining a clear vision of industry Ideas are managed within this portfolio that spawning new
and the evolution of technology that could add value for the
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• Political skill • Directing the IT strategy to achieve a good balance of
investments across business support systems like business
• Influence, leadership, power change or business growth
• Relationship management • Making informed decisions concerning IT resource
• Inventiveness targeting and prioritizing.
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• IT budgets must be in keeping with industry averages and [9] John, B., Jon P., Nicholas G. C., The Executive's Guide to Information
Technology, Second Edition, Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub, March
should target the costs of appropriate activities. 23, 2007.
[10] A. W. Paul; IT Alignment: Who is in Charge?, IT Governance Institute,
Roling Meadows USA, 2005.
V. CONCLUSIONS
The conclusions can be drawn are as follows:
• The demand management strategy will succeed if
senior company managers liaise well and implement
sound strategic planning.
• As part of the demand management life cycle, strategic
planning is regarded as one of the keys to an
enterprise’s business success.
• At present there is no set model for maximizing IT -
business alignment in all situations, and a great deal
will depend on the nature of the business, the its
capacity, its markets, the IT unit, leadership style
deployed in the business and entrepreneurial culture
and on the maturity of IT governance in the
organization.
• Business managers want to have the technology and
return on investment but do not work properly with
CIOs to achieve this.
• It is very important for the strategic planning
committee to meet regularly to evaluate company
performance and be able to make the necessary
adjustments to strategies for ongoing projects.
• If IT projects have not been prioritized, aligning the
objectives of the project portfolio with corporate
objectives, it is very hard to tell whether they are
successes or failures. Unless this condition holds, an
organization is unlikely to be able to tell whether the
projects it develops maximize the profit expected by
the shareholders of investments in IT.
• At present, the challenge is to build a business model
for which the CIO, senior executives and business line
managers are responsible.
REFERENCES
[1] S. Cray, “How IT Must Shape And Manage Demand”, Forrester,
Cambridge, June 15, 2006.
[2] B. Andrew, “Defining The MOOSE In The IT Room”, Forrester,
Cambridge, October 18, 2005.
[3] S. Cray, “Relationship Managers: Focal Points For Innovation”,
Forrester, Cambridge, June 15, 2006.
[4] V. Margo, “What Successful Organizations Know About Project
Management”, Forrester, Cambridge, May 26, 2006.
[5] G. Chip, V. Margo, “Moving Up The Portfolio Management Ladder”,
Forrester, Cambridge, March 22, 2004.
[6] Susan, “Maturing Your Demand Management Practices”, Valuedance,
[7] Center for CIO leadership, “La Profesion del CIO”, IBM, New York,
October 2007.
[8] Center for CIO leadership, “La Profesion del CIO”, IBM, New York,
October 2007.
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