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 business‑  alignment

 approach, a  top-  down 

approach is used to review how information systems can be used to directly support a defined 

business strategy. Referring to digital business strategy, Pant and Ravichandran (2001) say:

Alignment models focus on aligning the information system’s plans and priorities with 

organizational strategy and business goals.

The importance of alignment is stressed in the digital channel strategic initiative  business- 

 case prioritisation investment matrix (Figure 5.7). Linking information systems to objec-

tives and critical success factors (CSF) (Table 5.6) is one approach for using the alignment 

approach. Another is the use of business systems planning methodology which focusses on 

deriving data and applications needs by analysis of existing business processes.

In the