ISP -purpose and major challenges

In today’s turbulent and increasingly complex economy businesses need tools for handling information flows efficiently and effectively. Organizations use information for various functions such as planning, controlling, organizing, and decision-making. Information, therefore, is unquestionably a critical resource in the operations of all organizations. The effectiveness of using information technology is a core competency of today's organizations.

Information Systems planning is an ongoing activity which must be repeated frequently to ensure that information systems continue to be developed according to the IS plan, and to update the process with any changes that are occurring due to management decision or other external business factors. The information systems plan is the plan by which databases and information systems of the enterprise are accomplished in a timely manner. Organization strategic information system planning or ISP is the guide for organizational information systems development. The purpose of information systems plan (ISP) is to satisfy managerial information requirements. It is to provide convenience in accessing information within an organization and to assure the security of managing and supervising the crucial information and decision-making with regard to information systems of the organization.

Strategic information systems planning have been developed to aid in recognizing appropriate portfolio of computer based application and relevant information processing activities to support organizations’ information needs. Strategic ISP is not a single solution or method for IS planning but an umbrella term for host of methods and techniques that are more or less based on different paradigms of world, organizations, and humans. Improved strategic information systems planning is and has been one of the most critical issues facing information systems executives for over three decades already

ISP has huge potential to make contribution to businesses and other organizations. With the advent of new technologies, such as Internet, the challenge of aligning IS with business is perhaps more significant and more difficult than ever. On the one hand, effective SISP can help organizations use information systems to reach business goals. On the other hand, SISP can also enable organizations to use information systems to significantly impact their strategies.

Today’s business environment is increasingly characterized by fierce competition, dynamic and fast changing markets and global distribution of work. These changes in competitive environment have led companies to ever more concentrating on few core processes and developing their own core competencies. Every year, $300-700 million dollar corporations spend about 5% of their gross income on information systems and their supports. A significant part of those funds support enterprise database, a philosophy of database system applications that enable corporations to research the past, control the present, and plan for the future.

There are many instances where IT, through proper planning has been used by companies as a strategic weapon to help them stay ahead in today’s highly competitive environment. Strategic Information Systems Planning is a systematic methodology that provides structural guide. It is a process of identifying a portfolio of computer-based applications that will assist an organization in executing its business plan and realizing its business goals. Although difficult, strategic IS planning gives information managers the opportunity to identify broad initiatives, specific applications and critical technologies to help their organizations carry out their current business strategies more successfully. It also offers a means to identify opportunities for using information systems to create new business strategies. Although many organizations conduct some form of IS planning, recent studies confirmed that despite the increasing number of frameworks and methodologies for ISP, severe problems do exist in the execution of an ISP. IS planning methodologies may produce satisfactory plans but organizations often lack the management commitment and control mechanisms to ensure that they follow the plans.

The most important criterion for a successful implementation of IT in business is that the effects and implications of IT are in line with corporate business strategies. This framework ties business planning with IT planning. Within each quadrant are some simple tools for the purpose. Business strategies are first developed by assessing external opportunities against company’s internal strengths and weaknesses. They serve as the basis where IT may possibly be used. Formulating IT strategies then involves evaluating company’s information requirement alongside technology opportunities. The usage of IT is strategically aligned with its business operations to help the firm achieve its goal and objectives.

An information systems planning or ISP is based on two core arguments. The first is that, at a minimum, a firm’s information systems investments should be aligned with the overall business strategy and in some cases may even become an emerging source of competitive advantage. The second core argument behind ISP is that companies can best achieve IS-based alignment or competitive advantage by following a proactive, formal and comprehensive process that includes the development of broad organizational information requirements.

A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned. The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started. The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates; technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away. While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly. The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.
The effective management of information services in the modern firm is a challenging task, to say the least. Most enterprises today are highly dependent on their ability to manage information technology. In many firms, the quality of the firm’s products or services depends on the strategic choices the firm has made with respect to its information services. The three key elements of an IT strategy are: the choice of what IT-related products or services are required for the business, the determination of which of these products and services will require firm-specific capabilities, and the choice of governance and ownership for both firm specific and generic capabilities. These decisions intertwine and cannot be made in isolation or even in sequence.

Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) and aligning IT with business has been in a key focus of IS managers for decades already. Constant changes in business environment and developments in technologies are hardly making the effort any easier. Characteristic for available strategic information system methods is their focus on a single organization. The need for ISPs has not diminished. It has in fact increased due to the decentralization and distribution of planning and control for data and processing. No longer are one or a few persons in control. Rather, many hundreds of groups have access to data and the means to create sophisticated information systems in cost effective manners. The result regrettably is that the cumulative cost of thousands of small systems with discordant semantics far exceeds the cost of their former centralized ones. Nonetheless, it is imperative that there be centralized planning and control over the accomplishment of all these information systems so that resources can be conserved, and data and process semantics standardized. Once managed and optimized, the decentralization and individual empowerment efforts can have their benefits accumulate beneficially rather than be a source of endless conflicts and semantic clashes.

ISP is the planning of information systems for an organization. It is the job of IS to deliver business benefits to an organization. SISP involves understanding what the business goals are and identifying how IS can support those goals by delivering benefits. This involves the alignment of IS with the business. Business or information system (IS) alignment is a key concept, but perhaps we should talk about integration. IS should be an integrated resource within the organization which contributes to the organization’s core competencies which may result in sustainable competitive advantage. The planning of IS cannot be considered as a one-off or occasional event. It is a continuous sustained process, as we plan and re-plan and respond to changes in the business environment.
Information System Planning. The continuous review of computer technology, applications and management structure to ensure that the current and anticipated information and process needs of the organization are met in a way that provides an acceptable return on investment, is sensitive to the dynamic politics and culture of the organization and is aware of the sociological environment within which the organization exists.

In the process of developing an information system plan (ISP) as well as its implementation, there are various major challenges that are encountered and must be resolved. One of which that is hard to deal with is the constant change in business environment and developments in technologies. The ISP must be aligned with everything that is important to its development. It should be updated; cope with the changes made and considerations should be broadened with regard to modifications. The resources and budget of time and money to be able to build up and create the desired information system plan is one of the challenges and difficulties in constructing an information system plan (ISP). Lack of budget and misuse of resources could greatly affect the progress of formulating an information system plan (ISP). In undertaking the course of action in developing an information system plan (ISP), it is of very significant factor to consider the finances that will be involve and the budget that should be set, the management and usage of the resources and supplies. Another challenge would be how it should be manage. Critical analysis and approach in the information system plan should be made to administer it thoroughly. One needs to be skilled and well-knowledgeable in order to manage well an information system (IS). The manager should know how to handle risk and deal with any adjustments that be made in the system. He/she must ensure that the plans are followed and monitor the control mechanism of the information system. The IS manager practice management commitment to the goals. One should develop a keen appreciation for the challenges of setting an information services strategy while delivering high quality information services.

It should be kept in mind that what cases do is bring a small chunk of the real world into the academic setting, where we can examine it, determine what problems exist, discuss optional approaches to dealing with the problems, and decide upon a course of action. The ideas and references that were the basis of these are opinions and were based on case studies and researches of different organizations and practitioners in the field of Information Technology (IT). Further amplification of topics and ideas on the major challenges involving information systems planning may be determined and identified through detailed and systematic studying on the said subject matter. And the purpose and function of information system plan (ISP) may be expanded and lengthened with regard to what, when and how it is greatly used and utilized.

http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~nkm/sisp/WHATIS.html
http://www.lilleyinfosys.co.uk/is-strategy.html