Empirical Research on the Strategic Alignment in SMEs

IT plays a strategic role in modern organizations, and IT strategy works as a guideline for IT investment, IT project selection and implementation, IT management and IT service. The alignment of business strategy and IT strategy is even more important than IT strategy itself. This study measured business strategy, IT strategy, strategic alignment, IT performance, and business performance. Analysis of data gathered in a mail survey of China's manufacturing SMEs indicated that: 1) IT strategy itself does not influence business performance and IT performance; 2) strategic alignment strongly correlated with business performance and the impacts are positive; 3) strategic alignment has no impact on IT performance; 4) There is positive relationship between IT performance and business performance; 5) The relationship between business strategy and business performance is not strong. The contribution of different IT systems to IT performance is also examined.