Article:

Why Havent We Mastered Alignment? The Importance Of The Informal

Organization Structure.
This article discussed about how important aligning business and information
systems (IS) function in order to help the organization its mission, vision, objectives
and goal of the organization. Alignment between business and IS is very challenging
as it involves a strong relationship between the management and IS personnel.
Weaknesses in the alignment of business and IS resulting investments in IS to be a
loss to the business and also did not achieve the real objectives of the business itself.
There are two components of alignment that identify in the article which is strategic
alignment and structural alignment in order to improve IS performance. Strategic
alignment focuses on the performance of IS to help businesses make decisions and
support business objectives. Besides, IS Personnel is an integral part of the
management so that the IS program will be implemented in line with the planning
organization to improve performance.
While the structural alignment focused on the use of information systems in
developing and streamlining the internal organizational structure to support the
business objectives of the organization. IT people will share the information with the
management so that management understands how the system operates. Then, they
have to cross their function to make management of the organization to be smoother.
Research on eight top performing organizations or firms that adopt high IS
alignment has been done to examine whether the strategic and structural
preconditions are consistently present. The researcher identify the firms based on
the measurement of business objectives and targets, level of achievement IS
performance and level of achievement business objectives. From the interview
session, they found that most of the organization have strong relationship between
management and IS department. It is important to the organization in improving
their operation and financial performance as a strategy to ensure the successful of
the organization.
From the case study showed that the use of strategic alignment is more effective and
has a higher chance for success of the organization. This is because the relative
importance of alignment is mostly at critical and high level in the best performing
companies. This is slightly different from the structural alignment in which the
structural alignment looks to the success of the organizational structure first then if
the structure is strong, the alignment precondition will be successful. In addition,
the organization has a great management structure is the most important thing in a
business. Followed by efficient IS, then the organization will be doubling successful.
Although strategic alignment and structural alignment gives a slightly different effect
on the organization, but what is important is the structure of the organization itself
either formal or informal structure. Informal structure under discussion is one of the
important elements associated with the management of the organization that covers
work, people, processes and technologies that influence the performance of an
organizational.

Perfect relationship between informal structures with alignment essential to the

success of the alignment process in the organization. Various different elements of
each organization is required to ensure the success of IS alignment. Furthermore, IS
alignment and performance need to be improved. A lot of efforts need to be done
scarce management time and resources in order to robustness of the informal
organization.
As a conclusion, informal structure matters more essential than formal structure
matters. Even IS system is great, but if no positive attitudes of individuals in the use
of IS, it is still a loss to the organization. Component of IS alignment is very
important need to get IS performance. Strategic alignment is more useful than
structural alignment for the management practise.