Strategic Alignment and Enterprise Systems Implementation: The Case of Metalco

This paper explores the issue of strategic alignment and enterprise systems (ES) implementation from the point of view of one organization involved in deploying an enterprise resource planning system globally. Two questions motivated this research. First, given that strategic information systems (IS) alignment is viewed as essential to organizational success in deriving value from information technology (IT) investments, what is the experience of organizations in practice in aligning their IT strategies with their business strategies? Second, what is the impact of global ES deployments on strategic IS alignment? Based on an in-depth case study of one organization's experience, the research shows that achieving alignment is still important yet difficult to attain. The pressure for alignment may be even more intense with the deployment of global enterprise-wide systems. The study provides additional empirical support for the strategic IS alignment construct and goes further to suggest that deploying an ES does not by itself create integrated and seamless operating environments. In addition, such an outcome requires significant organizational change at all levels.