Strategic Alignment and Information Technology on the Performance of East African Portland Cement Company Ltd in Kenya

Abstract

Information technology has become an important tool for organizations to achieve competitive advantage in today’s marketplace whose level of competition has become intense and severe. The present day business environment is characterized by greater uncertainty in international financial markets, rapid product obsolescence and volatile consumer demand and under such an environment, there is need for a business unit to respond quickly to the demands of the market. One of the tools that can be used by a firm is integration of information technology with internal firm’s processes. The research objective sought to find out the role of strategic alignment and information technology on the performance of East African Portland Cement Company Ltd in Kenya.Towards the realization of the same objective, a case study research design was adopted whereby the researcher interviewed four managers. As a tool to collect data, an interview guide was prepared to guide the researcher to collect data and the data was analyzed using content analysis. From the study it is noted that competitive advantages through alignment of organizations IT with business processes and resources, there is need for an organization to come up with a top-down policy that will involve all cadres of employees in the implementation of the same strategy. Further, the effect of leadership on strategic alignment was found to require effective interaction between the business and IT management in the firm in order for business and IT plans to be coordinated and to share domain knowledge between business and IT managers. The study concluded that the alignment of organizations internal and external strategies with its IT platform is bound to give the organization a competitive advantage if only there is adequate scanning of the firms present day operating environment and identifying the threats and opportunities that exist in the market. This study was limited by the research methodology in that some interviewees were not honest with their answers as they were uncomfortable commenting on their employer. Given more interviewees however would have increased representation hence consistency.