What is Bi-Directional Business IT Alignment

Business/IT (information technology) alignment can be considered as one of the key challenges of information management (IM). A vast majority of studies assumes a unidirectional alignment process that seeks to link the IT strategies to superior business objectives. However, there are plenty of market situations where the ability of an enterprise, or even entire branches, to adjust their business model to new IT developments is crucial to survive among their competitors. Under the umbrella of new buzz words like digital transformation and digital transition and their glaring examples such as media streaming, these competitive requirements have recently become more vital. Currently dominant business-driven alignment paradigms are seemingly not capable of accommodating these requirements to a full extent. In this chapter, the concept of bi-directional business/IT alignment is explained and defined by extending a well-known three-layer model of IM. Furthermore, different IM models as well as common IT governance frameworks are analyzed to find the extent to which they support this paradigm.