Even as IT organizations strive to achieve a balance between strategic approach and short-term cost reductions, they are bound by past decisions, often made for tactical reasons, which limit their current environment. Business departments are famous for demanding that IT eliminate misguided developments and improve flexibility. 

As an example of this problem, let us take here the transformation of the IT portfolio in the course of the consolidation of two IT departments following an acquisition, specifically: the concrete definition of a standard middleware product for the implementation of IT services offered in the new corporate structure.  

A comparison of various middleware products based on the number of middleware products in use and the knowledge of the planned middleware installations can be used as the basis for a decision about a standard.  

But determination of the standardization based solely on the consideration of this one dimension is a fatal error. There are a number of aspects which must be taken into account when defining the standard. Yet the accurate database for such analyses is not available or can only be obtained by the time-consuming and laborious questioning of the people in charge of the system or by researching various data sources. This in turn delays the decision, and the gathered data do not always stand up because they have been compiled by individuals and may contain errors.

It is important to have an overview of more than one complex interdependency and to understand the effects that the change of a single parameter can have. This helps to define specific steps during the modification of the consolidated IT service portfolio for the merged IT departments and to monitor these steps by defining checkpoints. The utilization of a planning tool as described in the concept of AII allows predictions of the course of development by representing it from various perspectives. At the same time, the value propositions can be added as a critical decision-making criterion. 

Value creation and business alignment in the context of AII

When standards for information systems, their application, and the IT infrastructure components used for this purpose are being defined strategically, it is necessary to understand the precise role of the employed information technology in creating value within the corporate processes and to measure its value proposition continuously. As is shown in Figure 2, the value creation is separated from the investment or the generation costs by the performance factors and the organizational aspects. The exact costs and/or investment proportions are controlled and determined by the organization through its procurement or use of competencies and resources by means of process and resource management.