Aligning Business and Information Technology through the Balanced Scorecard

Modern companies continually increase their investments into Information Technology (IT). However, in most cases the return on these investments is not satisfactory. The question being posed in such cases is how are IT potentials being managed. Reasons to follow initiate the need for the development of IT management discipline. The goal of the paper is to analyze the strategic level of managing the IT function using the IT Balanced Scorecard method (IT BSC). IT BSC facilitates the mechanism for linking the business strategy and IT (the so-called strategic alignment) in order to ensure the largest possible business value of IT. In order to achieve the goal of more detailed analysis of the strategic alignment, the model of cascading the business balanced scorecard and some individual IT balanced scorecard levels (IT Strategic BSC, IT Development BSC, IT Operational BSC) is defined in this paper. Within such a model, IT BSC facilitates the mechanism of strategic management of integrated IT processes, where IT Operational BSC and IT Development BSC represent enablers of the IT Strategic BSC that in turn is the enabler of the Business BSC. In general, IT BSC constitutes one of the essential mechanisms for the IT governance process support .