Sunday, December 13, 2009

The nature relationship of the Business plan and the IS plan...

Before anything else i would the discuss first the definition of business plan and IS plan according to the source that i've gather

Business Plan

A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.

The business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit and government agency business plans tend to focus on organizational mission which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with "margin" (or revenue). Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. A business plan having changes in perception and branding as its primary goals is called a marketing plan.

Business Systems Planning (BSP):

This methodology, developed by IBM, combines top down
planning with bottom up implementation. The methodology focuses on business processes which in
turn are derived from an organization’s business mission, objectives and goals. Business processes
are analyzed to determine data needs and, then, data classes. Similar data classes are combined to
develop databases. The final BSP plan describes an overall information systems architecture as well
as installation schedule of individual systems

(c) there is a problem of bridging the gap between top down planning and bottom up
implementation.
(d) it does not incorporate a software design methodology.
(e) major weakness of BSP is the considerable time and effort required for its successful
implementation.

IS Planning

Planning for information systems, as for any other system, begins with the identification of
needs. In order to be effective, development of any type of computer-based system should be a
response to need--whether at the transaction processing level or at the more complex information and
support systems levels. Such planning for information systems is much like strategic planning in
management. Objectives, priorities, and authorization for information systems projects need to be
formalized. The systems development plan should identify specific projects slated for the future,
priorities for each project and for resources, general procedures, and constraints for each application
area. The plan must be specific enough to enable understanding of each application and to know
where it stands in the order of development. Also the plan should be flexible so that priorities can be
adjusted if necessary.

Strategic Systems Planning (SSP):

Also known as PROplanner and developed by Robert
Holland, this methodology is similar to BSP. A business functional model is defined by analyzing
major functional areas of a business. A data architecture is derived from the business function
model by combining information requirements into generic data entities and subject databases. New
systems and their implementation schedules are derived from this architecture. This architecture is
then used to identify new systems and their implementation schedule. Although steps in the SSP
procedure are similar to those in the BSP, a major difference between SSP and BSP is SSP’s
automated handling of the data collected during the SISP process. Software produces reports in a
wide range of formats and with various levels of detail. Affinity reports show the frequencies of
accesses to data and clustering reports give guidance for database design. Users are guided through
menus for on-line data collection and maintenance. The software also provides a data dictionary
interface for sharing SSP data with an existing data dictionary or other automated design tools.
Steps in the SSP procedure are shown in figure 5. In addition to SSP, Holland System’s
Corporation also offers two other methodologies - one for guiding the information system
architecture and another for developing data structures for modules from the SISP study. The
strengths and weaknesses of BSP apply to SSP as well.

Conclusion:

Both Business and IS planning are aiming for a good and effective output both of them are usually used in the business. Business planning is dealing with the goal of the company which is to earn more profit while the IS planning are the one who help the business plan to be more competitive in the sense of making the system to be automated so that business process will be more faster than ordinary transaction or manual transaction.

Issue for the business and IS planning:

One of the key elements of strategic planning for information systems (IS) is the integration of information systems planning (ISP) with business planning (BP). This integration enables IS to support business strategies more effectively. Although this issue has received significant attention in recent years, empirical research focusing specifically on BP-ISP integration is still relatively sparse. This research extends existing results by examining the evolution of BP-ISP integration and the contingency variables that may influence BP-ISP integration.The results confirmed the existence of an evolutionary pattern that can be defined in terms of movement through four types of BP-ISP integration: administrative integration to sequential integration to reciprocal integration to full integration. Only a few firms indicated that they had reached full integration. Bypassed phases and reverse evolution, though observed, were uncommon. Among the contingency variables, the business competence of the IS executive appeared to be a key factor in influencing the extent of integration.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plan
http://viu.eng.rpi.edu/publications/strpaper.pdf