3^rd Workshop on Business and IT Alignment (BITA 2012)

in conjunction with
15th International Conference on Business Information Systems (BIS 2012)

Vilnius, Lithuania
May 21-23, 2012

Deadline for submissions: March 26 (11:59pm CET), 2012

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A contemporary challenge for enterprises is to keep up with the pace of changing business demands imposed on them in different ways. There is today an obvious demand for continuous improvement and alignment in enterprises but unfortunately many organisations don’t have proper instruments (methods, patterns, best practices etc.) to achieve this. Enterprise modelling and business process management are two areas belonging to a tradition where the mission is to improve business practice and business and IT alignment. In this tradition the alignment process usually is manifested in taking a business from one state into another improved state, i.e. a transformation of the business and its supporting IT into something that is regarded as better. A challenge in business and IT alignment is to move beyond this narrow focus on one tradition or technology. We need to be aware of and able to deal with a number of dimensions of the enterprise architecture and their relations in order to create alignment. Examples of such dimensions are: organisational structures, strategies, business models, work practices, processes, and IS/IT structures. Among the concepts that deserve special attention in this context is IT governance. An effective IT governance aligns IT investments with overall business priorities, determines who makes the IT decisions and assigns accountability for the outcomes. There are ordinarily three governance mechanisms that an enterprise needs to have in place, 1) decision-making structures, 2) alignment process, and 3) formal communications.

This workshop aims to bring together people who have strong interest in business and IT alignment. We would like to invite researchers and practitioners from both industry and academia to submit original results of their completed or ongoing projects. We encourage broad understanding of possible approaches and solutions for business and IT alignment, including IT governance subjects. Specific focus will be on practices of business and IT alignment, i.e. we encourage submission of case study and experiences papers.

Topics

• Challenges in business and IT alignment
• Business and IT alignment in small and medium sized enterprises
• Business/ IT alignment through BPM
• Business and IT alignment discovery, change and improvement - methodologies and best practices
• Business value of business and IT alignment
• Organisational implementations of various levels of business and IT alignment approaches
• Metrics associated with the alignment life cycle, re-design, implementation, management and improvement
• Best practice business and IT alignment case studies
• The relationship between BPM and enterprise architecture
• Critical success factors and associated KPIs´ for alignment initiatives
• IT governance as a mean for alignment
• Enterprise modelling as a tool for business and IT alignment
• Human aspects of business and IT alignment; organizational staffing and structure, change management and leadership strategies
• Design thinking in business and IT alignment
• Practices of business and IT alignment
• Experience reports and case studies

Submission

• Long papers: max. 12 pages

Workshop format

Important dates

• March 26 (11:59pm CET), 2012 - submission deadline for papers
• April 15, 2012 - notification of acceptance/rejection
• April 30, 2012 - submission of final papers
• May 21-23, 2012 - the workshop

Organizers

• Jönköping University
• Rostock University

Chairs

• Kurt Sandkuhl
• Ulf Seigerroth

Program Committee (to be extended)

• Mathias Ekstedt, KTH, Sweden
• Khaled Gaaloul, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
• Klas Gäre, Jönköping International Business School, Sweden
• Remigijus Gustas, Karlstad University, Sweden
• Stijn Hoppenbrouwers, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
• Håvard Jørgensen, Commitment AS, Norway
• Tomasz Kaczmarek, Poznan University of Economics, Poland
• Marite Kirikova, Riga Technical University, Latvia
• John Krogstie, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
• Mikael Lind, Borås University, Sweden
• Wolfgang Molnar, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
• Andreas Opdahl, University of Bergen, Norway
• Anne Persson, Skövde University, Sweden
• Erik Proper, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
• Kurt Sandkuhl, Rostock University, Germany
• Ulf Seigerroth, Jönköping University, Sweden
• Nikolay Shilov, SPIIRAS, Russia
• Janis Stirna, KTH, Sweden
• Vivian Vimarlund, Jönköping International Business School, Sweden