A fundamental starting point is the need for alignment of business/
organizational needs, what is done with IT, and plans for human resources,
organizational structures and processes. The highly publicized 1990 Landmark
Study tends to conflate these into alignment of business, organizational
and IT strategies (Scott Morton, 1991; Walton, 1989). A simpler approach is
to suggest that the word ‘strategy’ should be used only when these different
plans are aligned. There is much evidence to suggest that such alignment
rarely exists. In a study of 86 UK companies, Ernst and Young (1990) found
only two aligned. Detailed research also shows lack of alignment to be a
common problem in public sector informatization (Willcocks, 1992b). The
case of an advertising agency (cited by Willcocks and Mason, 1994) provides
a useful illustrative example: