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Cirque du soleil case study essay
Aligning IT with business strategy
Importance of aligning strategy with business strategy
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Two organizations that show the importance of aligning a company’s business strategy with their IT strategy are Cirque du Soleil and Major League Baseball. Both of these organizations rely on digital technology to make it easier to provide to their customers better entertainment through collaboration.
Cirque du Soleil, which was founded in 1984, has met a large amount of success in its short 30 years of operation. This Canadian multinational entertainment company has venues all over the world based in Canada, the United States and Japan. Along with these venues they perform their shows in multinational tours across the globe reaching over 40 countries. The large amount of success however did not come without the strategic use of technology to awe the crowds and feed the inner workings of their organization.
Initially, there was speculation about the prominence of IT in an organization like Cirque du Soleil, where creativity, imagination and presentation skills were considered vital, until Danielle Savoie helped the company achieve success. To facilitate the smooth flow of knowledge across different processes and projects of the organization, Danielle integrated all data gathered from different activities and supporting knowledge management systems. This was achieved by developing IT applications from scratch depending upon the custom requirements of the different groups within the organization. Cirque Memory was the repository that gathered all the data from different activities and integrated these. It was custom built and it stored Cirque du Soleil's data from various stages of its touring show life cycle.
Cirque Memory consisted of multiple modules which leveraged different activities of a touring show. These were, Open Eyes ...
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...s the best chance to find and achieve a competitive advantage.
References
Elizabeth Nixon (N/A). How Stuff Works. Retrieved from http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/theater/cirque.htm
Michael Venables (2013, August 30). Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelvenables/2013/08/30/technology-behind-the-magical-universe-of-cirque-du-soleil-part-one/
Daniel Terdiman (2005, December 5). CNet. Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/The-tech-inside-Cirques-big-tent/2100-1041_3-5979162.html
Robert C. Ferrara (2005, February 1). Hydraulics and Pneumatics. Retrieved from http://hydraulicspneumatics.com/200/TechZone/Cylinders/Article/False/9467/TechZone-Cylinders
Elberse, Anita, and Brett Laffel. "Major League Baseball Advanced Media: Americas Pastime Goes Digital." Harvard Business School Case 510-092, March 2010. (Revised February 2011.)
Keller, Tracy. "The Rise of Mobile in Sports Marketing." Concordia University Saint Paul. N.p., 29 Apr. 2013. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
" Baseball Parks 1 (1996): 1. Dortch, Shannon. "The Future of Baseball. " American Demographics 18 (1996) 25-30. Jerry Maguire. Dir.
Whether it's Mark McGwire breaking the home run record, Terell Davis breaking the rushing record, or superstars retiring, Americans have always had a fascination with sports. Sports have provided entertainment even before radio or television. Sports provided many things for the fans that watched them. Sports allowed communities to grow stronger and provided great athletes to look up to. With the arrival of television sports took on a whole new meaning. Being able to watch a game together gave the community a new way to bond, giving individuals a visual image of their favorite athletes. The television also opened up the industry of commercialization. Sports, televison, and merchandising on television became a combination that continues even today.The community in the 1950's was like one big family. Children played in the streets, everyone knew everyone else on the block, and sports created unbreakable bonds. Children and their fathers, neighbors, and even complete strangers could always talk about sports. As televison began to fill American homes, neighbors flocked to each others house to watch different events. Even neighbors who loved different sides crowded around the television to watch the event. Whether it was baseball, wrestling, golf, roller derby, or another sport, television allowed the community to grow closer. It is estimated that one sporting event drew an audience of 150,000 viewers. This is remarkable considering there was only about 5,000 television sets in American homes. That is about 30 people per set! Sports and television did more than just bring the community closer together. Sports on television became so popular that merchandising became a booming business. Whether at a game or sitting in the living room, authentic merchandise was a must for any fan. Much like the merchandise in Karal Ann Marlings book As Seen On TV, the merchandising industry exploited the people.
IBM System Journal. "Strategic Alignment: Leveraging Information Technology for Transforming Organizations." Last accessed April 14, 2007. http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/journal/sj/382/henderson.pdf
In the early 20th century, as baseball’s national appeal expanded and its popularity exploded, there emerged a journalistic
Nemee, David. “100 Years of Major League Baseball.” Lincolnwood, Illinois: Publications Infernational, Ltd, 200. Print.
Claim: As the growth of baseball’s popularity attracted commercial interest of the sport began to
Crafting the national pastime's image: The history of major league baseball public relations William B Anderson. Journalism and Communication Monographs. Columbia: Spring 2003. Vol. 5, Iss. 1; pg. 5
What major technology change has had the greatest impact on the quality of your life?
Information Technology (IT) is a foundation for conducting business today. It plays a critical role in increasing productivity of firms and entire nation. It is proven that firms who invested in IT have experienced continued growth in productivity and efficiency. Many companies' survival and even existence without use of IT is unimaginable. IT has become the largest component of capital investment for companies in the United States and many other countries.
Henderson and Venkatraman proposed a model for business – IT alignment; it was intended to support the integration of information technology (IT) into business strategy by advocating alignment between and within four domains (see figure 1). The inter-domain alignment is pursued along two dimensions: strategic fit (between the external and internal domain) and functional integration (between the business domain and the IT domain). The objective of this model was to provide a way to align information technology with business objectives in order to realise value from IT investments. The authors argued that the potential strategic impact of information technology requires both an understanding of the critical components of IT strategy and its role in supporting and shaping business strategy decisions and a process of continuous adaptation and change. Hence, they presented a model that defines the range of strategic choices facing managers.
"MLB Baseball To Expand Instant Replay." All Things Considered 16 Aug. 2013.Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
The increase of business digitization processes, services and products ensures a better understanding of the digital strategies of a business. Some of the digital strategies such as IT outsourcing and investments in general information technology are major elements of overall business strategy, which most of the timesoften allow organizations to differentiate themselves from their competitors and also creating create demands that conform with the norms of the competition (Cadle, Paul & Turner, 2010). The needs need to changeof changing the digital strategies for competitive environments areis prompted by:
Without a successful business strategy put in place the company would fail and be unable to compete with competitors. There would be on way of knowing what resources are required. No planning for the future of the business. If there are no targets set out to achieve there would be no way of measuring how successful the company has been.
Organizations and individuals have to strategically position themselves in order to take advantage of the growing technology and achieve business competitive advantage while at it (DeHaven 2010 pg 1). Technology has enabled globalization; where ideas, products and services have been shared. This has promoted foreign businesses thus helping different economies all across the globe. Different organizations and individuals have realized that technology will keep growing and changing and the best strategy will be to adapt it other than holding to rigid ways of doin...