Assessing the impact of integrating business planning and IS planning

One of the key elements of strategic planning for information systems (IS) is the integration of IS planning (ISP) and business planning (BP). Although this issue has received significant attention in recent years, empirical research focusing specifically on it is still relatively sparse. Here, BP–ISP integration is considered in four ways (administrative, sequential, reciprocal, and full integration), reflecting various degrees of BP–ISP integration. The relationships between these and organizational impact (measured in terms of the extent of ISP problems and the extent of IS contributions to organizational performance) are investigated through the analysis of data gathered in a ‘matched pair’ field survey of business planners and IS executives. The results empirically validate the importance of BP–ISP integration, since it was found to have a significant positive relationship with IS contributions to organization performance and a significant negative relationship to the extent of ISP problems.