The Relationship between the Business Plan and the IS plan and the Difficulties It Poses

What should be the nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan?

Before establishing a degree of relationship that exists between the business plan and the Strategic/ Information System Plan in an enterprise or business, there seems to be a need to expound on each areas. Defining each terms, giving relative examples and certain situations where each of the business plan and the strategic/ information system plan is essential in this topic so as to create the needed distinction and derive the level or nature of relationship between the business plan and the information system plan, which is to begin with is the question at hand.


If you were to ask me on what would I say if I were asked what is a business plan, I would have to say that it consist of the present but mostly the future undertakings a company has set to achieve their desired goals. An analogy for this is like building a gantt chart, creating a schedule of future activities, setting time lines and milestones and checking for progress or development. But, I reckon that creating a gantt chart is also involved in making a business plan. That is what I think of when asked about a business plan.

As what I read from Wikipedia, a business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals. Reading this I can say that I deserve a thumbs up because it sounds fairly the same as what I thought about.
It was also stated that the business goal can be either for for-profit or non-profit reasons. When the plans at hand are focusing on generating income or is made for financial reason it is what we call “For-profit business plan”. While non-profit, from the name itself refers to plans that tend to focus on service goals and doesn't really involve gathering profit or finances. Thou it was said that non-profits may also help on maximizing profit, for the reason that they may create an avenue for the business to be advertised. Business plans also consists if target changes in target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. A business plan having changes in perception and branding as its primary goals is called a marketing plan. Business plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have detailed information about the organization or team attempting to reach the goals. Internally focused business plans target intermediate goals required to reach the external goals. They may cover the development of a new product, a new service, a new IT system, a restructuring of finance, the refurbishing of a factory or a restructuring of the organization. An internal business plan is often developed in conjunction with a balanced score card or a list of critical success factors. This allows success of the plan to be measured using non-financial measures. Business plans that identify and target internal goals, but provide only general guidance on how they will be met are called strategic plans.

Now enough about the business plan, let us now venture into the realms of strategic/ information system planning. I was to be asked about my opinion on strategic/ information system planning, I would say that it deals with creating plans of establishing and maintaining an information system department or implement information system in a company.

I arrived to that trail of thought for my experience in developing a information system plan in the past. Last semester, we were tasked to create an Information System plan for our chosen company. The data we took consists of what were the current facilities being used, what databases or systems that are currently existing and their topology and applications. The aim of that paper was to generate new plans, ideas or solutions from the problems we have seen in their current IS status. We advised our adopted company to procure other facilities that they lack which seemed necessary for their business and we also suggested developing new systems that seemed beneficial for the company. In other words, it deals with setting ideas to “automize” a company in terms of services and taking their facilities a notch higher through the use of technology. It is a technical document intended for staff with implementation responsibility for a company's databases and systems. It describes the analysis of the Strategic Model to develop the SISP; in appendices it documents the Strategic Data Model in detail. The Strategic Plan identifies information needed by goals, objectives and key performance indicators . The SISP reviewed the mission, vision,direction, goals, strengths, weaknesses, objectives and threats that might occur and exist in a business.


From the descriptions above, it can be said that the strategic business plan is a part of the business plan. Business plan is a more general term than strategic/ information planning. Business plan is the over-all “fight plan”, made even before the business was built. Unlike in the Strategic Information Plan, it can be devised before or after establishing the enterprise. A good analogy for this is a program that has threads. A program is the business plan which holds different plans for different sectors of the company to achieve the projected goal or output. Threads (of which I will not explain any further for we are an IT community so I am expecting you are familiar with this ), are plans and one or more of those maybe the Strategic/ Information System plan, which may function differently than others but still stays true to the goal of the main program which is to reach the goals for the continued progress of a business. With all the differences between the two terms being discussed on this topic, we can observe that their main similarity is their main goal and that they are used for the same reason and that is to bring in development.

What are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration in IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan?

Computer based information systems are becoming not only a trend but also essential to the development, and execution of the over-all business plan or strategy. Business managers, however are too often besieged by the inadequate new systems with the missed target dates and over run budgets. These managers are questioning whether their firms are selecting and developing systems effectively and efficiently. To select and develop computer based information system, firms conventionally follow the systems development life cycle. The mystique that the computer is also challenged – that the computer is incomprehensible to the mortal business managers executive and must therefore be managed by technicians who may have a little understanding of the business organization. Finally these actions that the business managers and information system managers should take to develop more effective computer based systems are identified.

Computer based information systems firms are becoming increasingly vital to business and industry, More and more firms are attempting to use them to compete globally. Large and complex systems are being used to support the delivery of existing products and services to customers and for developing new products and services closely tied to their computers. They are making efforts to eliminate internal inefficiencies. Fierce competition, especially in the global market place and the falling price s of computers technology have and will continue to stimulate these endeavors.

In line with these before doing any implementation an information systems plan is to be made to attain the set goal. An Information system plan is a technical document intended for staff with implementation responsibility for an enterprise' databases and systems. It is a process for developing a strategy and plans for aligning information systems with the business strategies of an organization. Its goal is to help an organization provide business-focused Information Systems that enable and support their mission. It describes the analysis of the Strategic Model to develop the strategic information system plan; in appendices it documents the Strategic Data Model in detail. The Strategic Plan identifies information needed by goals, objectives and key performance indicators. The strategic information system plan reviewed the mission, vision,direction, goals, strengths, weaknesses, objectives and threats that might occur and exist in a business.

Like what I stated in the previous assignment, last semester, we were tasked to create an Information System plan for our chosen company. Looking back now, I tried to vision the difficulties we had encountered in creating the information system plan, and since I don't have any idea what are, specifically, the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration in information systems professionals and users while working on an information systems plan, my reply for the question given above is clearly from my own experience and nothing more. I don't have any other useful reference that would give me an idea whether I am on the right track or not, so forgive me if I got this wrong.

Well, back again to our previous argument, we, stating my group mates and I feeling like we were buried in an inch deep of water when making the IS plan. It was difficult and frustrating for a lot of reasons and if I rate all of it the top two on my list would be: 1. technicality on terms and the job itself 2. time pressure and budget.

IT world, is a whole new, limitless, unending and ever changing dimension. A system or device might be the best today but tomorrow something might surpass it. With this ever changing character, it was hard for us to devise an IS plan that will be suitable for the present status of the economy and the company. In a user's point of view, this degree of technicality, a new whole thing to him, change would be harder to accept.

Time pressure to create an IS plan is another frustrating variable, it not only pressures to the point of emotional stress but it also stresses the wallet or the budget. Lack of budget and if not enough time was given to create an IS plan that would surely be a headache to the IS professionals doing the job.

But I think on more professional level the frustrations would be caused by A: time pressure and B. the uncertainty of doing the job because of top management is not committing to the project or they don't cooperate much with the said project. Doing an information system plan needs help, guidance and assistance from the common employees to the top level management not only in financing the project but also in gathering important information and data to make the IS plan a possible goal. But a business comprises of several people working different tasks and it would be very difficult to get their time and attention, some of them aren't even familiar with the company's ICT aspects.