You discuss the market competitiveness in your post. Grefen (2016) describes there are numerous markets a company can operate. Do you think a company would need a strategy for each market? Can you give an example of how a company might need more than one strategy due to different markets?

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Strategic Information Technology analysis and the Business, Organization, Architecture, and Technology analysis tools both have similarities between each other in that they both can be used to analyze the strategic design between information technology structures and architecture and the organizational drivers and necessity behind them.

Grefen discussed one well known specific strategic business Information technology alignment model; Henderson and Venkatraman model (2105). The Henderson and Venkatraman strategic business information technology model is one of the most widely used strategic alignment model to relate information technology aspects to business aspects (Grefen, 2015).

The Henderson and Venkatraman strategic business information technology model implies that a networked e-business' external function must match up to its internal administrative operations and that the strategic alignment of these two functions must change over time in order to meet new market demands and or react to a fluid market environment and new technological developments.

Like the Business, Organization, Architecture, and Technology model that Grefen discusses indepth, the Henderson and Venkatraman strategic business information technology model also uses four main aspects to breakdown a given networked e-business functions and organizations: business strategy, information technology strategy, organizational infrastructure and processes, and information technology infrastructure and processes (Grfene, 2015).

While these four aspects of the Henderson and Venkatraman strategic business information technology model do not specifically align with the Business, Organization, Architecture, and Technology model they do provide a similarity in the information that they are used to analyze.

The Business Strategy aligns with Business. Organizational Infrastructure and Processes aligns with the Organizational aspect. The Information Technology Strategy aligns with the Architecture aspect. And, the Information Technology Infrastructure and processes aligns with the Technology aspect.

Grefen, P. (2015). Beyond E-Business: Towards networked structures. (16-30)

Respond to discussion 150 words minimum.

Hello class! I cannot believe that we are in week 7. It has gone by so fast and we are almost done with this class. For this week's assignment, we are discussing the concept of strategic business-IT alignment and how it relates to the BOAT framework. Strategic business IT alignment are used in "general business engineering to model and analyze the interplay between the strategic design of business structures and the use of information technology" (Grefen, 2016).

Some of the most well-known structure business IT models are the models of Henderson and Venkatraman. The BOAT framework focuses on the e-business aspect of a business and the Henderson and Venkatraman focuses on the business aspect. The Henderson and Venkatraman have four quadrants (cells) just like the BOAT framework has four aspects. The four quadrants of the Henderson and Venkatraman are: strategy execution, technology transformation, competitive potential, and service level.

The business between the two is not one to one. They all are working towards the application on IT. The Henderson model and the Venkatraman model goes deeper into the alignment of strategic issues, unlike the BOAT framework, which only touches on a little bit of the strategic alignment issues. Also, the four different perspectives of the Henderson and Venkatraman quadrants are: business strategy, IT strategy, organizational infrastructure & processes, and IT infrastructure and processes.

The business strategy of the alignment perspective relates to the business and organizational aspects of the BOAT framework in that "Requirement Pulls Alignment", and IT strategy perspective relates to the architecture and technology aspects of the BOAT framework in that "Technology Push Alignment."

References

Grefen, P. (2016). Beyond e-Business: Towards Networked Structures. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Respond to discussion 150 words minimum.

I hope that everyone is having a great holiday season. Only one more week of the course remains after this but it doesn't feel like we've been here for this long, already. This week we're talking about methodology, so let's get down to it. "A methodology is a comprehensive, multi-step approach to systems analysis and development that helps to guide work and influence the quality of information systems." (Hoffer, et al., 2002, p.5)

The rigor of a methodology is essential to every step of DBMS design, especially the logical data model. The logical data model design is the process of defining a system's data requirements and grouping elements into logical units. There are several steps in the logical data model that all have a role, but I would argue that the first step is the most useful. This is because the first step includes creating relationships and the primary keys for the logical data model.

These include: strong & weak entity types, one-to-one/one-to-many/many-to-many binary relationship types, superclass/subclass relationship types, complex relationship types, and multi-valued attributes. By establishing primary keys, which are unique identifiers for a row in a table, makes it easy to add, delete, modify, or sort data within the database.

By establishing a primary key, it allows the creation of relations between two tables. This is beneficial because all the data does not have to be on one table. This is especially helpful if we're trying to protect sensitive data as well as preventing certain types of errors. Instead, the database can have several tables that link to each other that can easily be viewed and sorted as needed.

References:

Hoffer, J., George, J., Valacich, J. Modern Systems Analysis and Design Third ed. Prentice Hall, 2002, p5. Retrieved from

Connolly, T., Begg, C. (01/2014). Database Systems: A Practical Approach to Design, Implementation, and Management, 6th Edition. [Bookshelf Online].

Respond to discussion 150 words minimum

We have covered a good deal of information regarding methodology. Why (when) would the rigor of methodology be useful? Select one step in the Logical Data Model from the Connolly text that you feel would "always" be useful and explain why?

Methodology is defined as a system of steps or procedures used in a particular area of study or activity (WebFinance Inc., 2017). In order to create an operational and efficient database that meets all of the organizational needs, certain methods have to be determined and followed.

If a designer wants to develop the best product possible, the rigors of methodology would always need to be employed. This allows the separate processes of the DBMS to be mapped out and changed if necessary.

The logical data model design provides a guideline of how to take the conceptual design that has no physical attributes and put them into an order that will eventually create a database.

In order to do this there are several steps that need to be followed. The step that I feel is the most useful is the deriving relations for the logical data model. To me this is the backbone of your entire database. During this step entities, relationships, and attributes are identified (Begg, 2015). Primary keys and alternate keys are also determined and can affect the overall functionality of the final product.

Relations also play a role in this step, structures such as strong and weak entity types, several types of relationships such as binary, recursive, one-to-many, complex, super and subclass are identified as well. (Begg, 2015) This step will always be useful due to it being the foundation on what the other steps build themselves upon. If there is something wrong with the way a database is operating, a smart place to start is determining is the relationships have been corrupted.

Works Cited

Begg, T. C. (2015). Database Systems: A Practical Application Approach to Design, Implementation, and Management (Vol. 6th). Pearson.
WebFinance Inc. (2017). Methodlogy. Retrieved 11 20, 21017, from Business Dictionary .

Respond to discussion 150 words minimum