Assignment 2 (Due: before November 29, 2009, 13:00hrs)

1. What should be the nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan? (at least 2000 words)

Business Plan
Business planning is about results. You need to make the contents of your plan match your purpose. Don’t accept a standard outline just because it’s there.A business plan is any plan that works for a business to look ahead, allocate resources, focus on key points, and prepare for problems and opportunities.
Unfortunately, many people think of business plans only for starting a new business or applying for business loans. But they are also vital for running a business, whether or not the business needs new loans or new investments. Businesses need plans to optimize growth and development according to priorities. A simple startup plan includes a summary, mission statement, keys to success, market analysis, and break-even analysis. This kind of plan is good for deciding whether or not to proceed with a plan, to tell if there is a business worth pursuing, but it is not enough to run a business with.

Is there a standard business plan?
A normal business plan (one that follows the advice of business experts) includes a standard set of elements, as shown below. Plan formats and outlines vary, but generally a plan will include components such as descriptions of the company, product or service, market, forecasts, management team, and financial analysis. Your plan will depend on your specific situation. For example, description of the management team is very important for investors while financial history is most important for banks. However, if you’re developing a plan for internal use only, you may not need to include all the background details that you already know. Make your plan match its purpose.

What is most important in a plan?
It depends on the case, but usually it’s the cash flow analysis and specific implementation details.
• Cash flow is both vital to a company and hard to follow. Cash is usually misunderstood as profits, and they are different. Profits don’t guarantee cash in the bank. Lots of profitable companies go under because of cash flow problems. It just isn’t intuitive.
• Implementation details are what make things happen. Your brilliant strategies and beautifully formatted planning documents are just theory unless you assign responsibilities, with dates and budgets, follow up with those responsible, and track results. Business plans are really about getting results and improving your company

Rationale for an Information Systems Plan
Many enterprises do not have model-based information systems development environments that allow system designers to see the benefits of rearranging an information systems development schedule. Consequently, the questions that cannot be answered include:
• What effect will there be on the overall schedule if an information system is purchased versus developed?
• At what point does it pay to hire an abnormal quantity of contract staff to advance a schedule?
• What is the long term benefit from 4GL versus 3GL?
• Is it better to generate 3GL than to generate/use a 4GL?
• What are the real costs of distributed software development over centralized development?

If these questions were transformed and applied to any other component of a business (e.g., accounting, manufacturing, distribution and marketing), and remained unanswered, that unit's manager would surely be fired!
We not only need answers to these questions NOW!, we also need them quickly, cost effectively, and in a form that they can be modeled and changed in response to unfolding realities. This paper provides a brief review of a successful 10-step strategy that answers these questions.
Too many half-billion dollar organizations have only a vague notion of the names and interactions of the existing and under development information systems. Whenever they need to know, a meeting is held among the critical few, an inventory is taken, interactions confirmed, and accomplishment schedules are updated.

This ad hoc information systems plan was possible only because all design and development was centralized, the only computer was a main-frame, and the past was acceptable prologue because budgets were ever increasing, schedules always slipping, and information was not yet part of the corporation's critical edge.
Rather than having centralized, long-range planning and management activities that address these problems, today's business units are using readily available tools to design and build ad hoc stop-gap solutions. These ad hoc systems not only do not interconnect, support common semantics, or provide synchronized views of critical corporate policy, they are soon to form the almost impossible to comprehend confusion of systems and data from which systems order and semantic harmony must spring.

Not only has the computing landscape become profoundly different and more difficult to comprehend, the need for just the right--and correct--information at just the right time is escalating. Late or wrong information is worse than no information.
Information systems managers need a model of their information systems environment. A model that is malleable. As new requirements are discovered, budgets modified, new hardware/software introduced, this model must be such that it can reconstitute the information systems plan in a timely and efficient manner.





Characteristics
of a Quality ISP



A quality
ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five
are presented in the table that follows.

Characteristic	Description
Timely	The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
Useable	The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
Maintainable	The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
Quality	While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
Reproducible	The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.

Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.
The ISP Steps
The information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner.
The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise.
Information Systems Plan Development Steps

Information Systems Plan Development Steps
Step	Name	Description
1.	Create the mission model	The mission model, generally shorter than 30 pages presents end-result characterizations of the essential raison d=etre of the enterprise. Missions are strategic, long range, and a-political because they are stripped of the Awho@ and the Ahow.@
2.	Develop a high-level data model	The high-level data model is an Entity Relationship diagram created to meet the data needs of the mission descriptions. No attributes or keys are created.
3.	Create the resource life cycles (RLC) and their nodes	Resources are drawn from both the mission descriptions and the high level data model. Resources and their life cycles are the names, descriptions and life cycles of the critical assets of the enterprise, which, when exercised achieve one or more aspect of the missions. Each enterprise resource Alives@ through its resource life cycle.
4.	Allocate precedence vectors among RLC nodes	Tied together into a enablement network, the resulting resource life cycle network forms a framework of enterprise=s assets that represent an order and set of inter-resource relationships. The enterprise Alives@ through its resource life cycle network.
5.	Allocate existing information systems and databases to the RLC nodes	The resource life cycle network presents a Alattice-work@onto which the Aas is@ business information systems and databases can be Aattached.@ See for example, the meta model in Figure 2. The Ato-be@ databases and information systems are similarly attached. ADifference projects@ between the Aas-is@ and the Ato-be@ are then formulated. Achievement of all the difference projects is the achievement of the Information Systems Plan.
6.	Allocate standard work break down structures (WBS) to each RLC node	Detailed planning of the Adifference projects@ entails allocating the appropriate canned work breakdown structures and metrics. Employing WBS and metrics from a comprehensive methodology supports project management standardization, repeatability, and self-learning.
7.	Load resources into each WBS node	Once the resources are determined, these are loaded into the project management meta entities of the meta data repository, that is, metrics, project, work plan and deliverables.
8.	Schedule the RLC nodes through a project management package facilities.	The entire suite of projects is then scheduled on an enterprise-wide basis. The PERT chart used by project management is the APERT@ chart represented by the Resource Life Cycle enablement network.
9.	Produce and review of the ISP	The scheduled result is predicable: Too long, too costly, and too ambitious. At that point, the real work starts: paring down the suite of projects to a realistic set within time and budget.
10.	Execute and adjust the ISP through time.	As the ISP is set into execution, technology changes occur that affect resource loadings. In this case, only steps 6-9 need to be repeated. As work progresses, the underlying meta data built or used in steps 1-5 will also change. Because a quality ISP is Aautomated@ the recasting of the ISP should only take a week or less.

If the pundits are to be believed, that is, that the right information at the right time is the competitive edge, then paying for an information systems plan that is accurate, repeatable, and reliable is a small price indeed.
It is precisely because enterprises have transformed themselves from a project to a release environment that information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained on an enterprise-wide basis are essential.
There are four major sets of activities within the continuous flow process environment. The user/client is represented at the top in the small rectangular box. Each of the ellipses represents an activity targeted to a specific need. The four basic needs are:
• Need Identification
• Need Assessment
• Design
• Deployment
ISP Summary
In summary, any technique employed to achieve an ISP must be accomplishable with less than 3% of the IT budget. Additionally, it must be timely, useable, maintainable, able to be iterated into a quality product, and reproducible. IT organizations, once they have completed their initial set of databases and business information systems will find themselves transformed from a project to a release environment.
The continuous flow environment then becomes the only viable alternative for moving the enterprise forward. It is precisely because of the release environment that enterprise-wide information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained are essential.

References:
Tim Berry.http://articles.bplans.com/writing-a-business-plan/what-is-a-business-plan/33
Michael M. Gorman. 1999. Information Systems Plan: The Bet-Your-Business Project. September 1, 1999. Available at: http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262

In any kind of activity or process, planning has been a crucial part that should be addressed carefully in order to make the end result a success. This is also true for business processes. A business plan and an information system plan are some of the concepts that are usually encountered (and usually used interchangeably) when dealing with business processes. But what is the difference between the two concepts and what is there relationship with each other?

In establishing any kind of relationship between two concepts, it is important that there must be a thorough definition and comparison of each concept first and then find a common ground which the two ideas can relate to each other. That's why in order to describe the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan, I will define first each concept, differentiate them from each other and then iterate the relationship between them.

If you would ask me what a business plan is, I would define it as a set of goals and future strategic plans that a business entity must achieve in order to reach a certain vision. In a layman’s point of view, a business plan is basically a plan that will clearly define where your company will be in a certain period of time [usually 3 to 5 years] and how do you plan on getting there. A business plan will put a direction to where your company will go and define standards of success for the business as a whole.

According to Michael Russell, a business plan is a detailed description of a new or existing business, including the company's product or service, marketing plan, financial statements and projections and management principles, require a plan to be implemented. It is a document that spells out a company's expected course of action for a specified period usually includes a detailed listing and analysis of risks and uncertainties. For the small business, it should examine the proposed products, the market, the industry, the management policies, the marketing policies, production needs and financial needs. Frequently, it is used as a prospectus for potential investors and lenders.

According to wikipedia.com, 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. Business plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have detailed information about the organization or team attempting to reach the goals. With for-profit entities, external stakeholders include investors and customers. External stake-holders of non-profits include donors and the clients of the non-profit's services. For government agencies, external stakeholders include tax-payers, higher-level government agencies, and international lending bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank, various economic agencies of the UN, and development banks. Internally focused business plans target intermediate goals required to reach the external goals. They may cover the development of a new product, a new service, a new IT system, a restructuring of finance, the refurbishing of a factory or a restructuring of the organization. An internal business plan is often developed in conjunction with a balanced scorecard or a list of critical success factors. This allows success of the plan to be measured using non-financial measures. Business plans that identify and target internal goals, but provide only general guidance on how they will be met are called strategic plans. Operational plans describe the goals of an internal organization, working group or department. Project plans, sometimes known as project frameworks, describe the goals of a particular project. They may also address the project's place within the organization's larger strategic goals. Business plans are decision-making tools. There is no fixed content for a business plan. Rather the content and format of the business plan is determined by the goals and audience. A business plan should contain whatever information is needed to decide whether or not to pursue a goal. For example, a business plan for a non-profit might discuss the fit between the business plan and the organization’s mission. Banks are quite concerned about defaults, so a business plan for a bank loan will build a convincing case for the organization’s ability to repay the loan. Venture capitalists are primarily concerned about initial investment, feasibility, and exit valuation. A business plan for a project requiring equity financing will need to explain why current resources, upcoming growth opportunities, and sustainable competitive advantage will lead to a high exit valuation.
Preparing a business plan draws on a wide range of knowledge from many different business disciplines: finance, human resource management, intellectual property management, supply chain management, operations management, and marketing, among others. It can be helpful to view the business plan as a collection of sub-plans, one for each of the main business disciplines.

"... a good business plan can help to make a good business credible, understandable, and attractive to someone who is unfamiliar with the business. Writing a good business plan can’t guarantee success, but it can go a long way toward reducing the odds of failure."

As you can notice, my definition and the website wikipedia’s definition are somewhat the same. The main keywords there are goals and plan. The business entity should have one major game plan that should be embraced by all its constituents in order to attain a certain vision. To put it simply, the business plan of a company is just as important as the blueprint of a house. Without a clear and well defined business plan, it would be impossible if not difficult to sustain the business in the next few years of its operations. Because every organization or company has different goals and objectives, the purpose of a business plan may also vary. One company might be looking for funding from investors. Another company might be looking for a loan from a bank. But whatever the case, basically every business needs a business plan.

An Information System Plan or ISP, on the other hand, is basically a plan concentrated on aligning the information systems of an organization to its business plan as a whole. An information system is comprised of the hardware, software and peopleware of an organization. Usually, the term information system is related to using technology as a crucial part of an organization. The term is also used to identify the computer-based system that an organization is using.
According to Michael M. Gorman, the information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner. The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise. Gorman has also identified some of the characteristics that an ISP should have and these are the following:
An ISP should be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
As I understand the definition of Gorman, an information system plan is basically is a systematic approach on planning the information system implementation of an organization as a whole. He emphasized on doing it at the right time and sequence and finishing it at a certain period.
Last semester on our MIS I subject, we were tasked to provide an Information system needs assessment of a certain company and provide recommendations for the needs that we identified. The task concentrated on the information system and the potential changes that we could recommend for improvement. From that experience, my colleagues and I got a glimpse of the process being gone through in proposing and making implementation plans. Our adopted company for that project had already established information system even from the beginning. But it’s not the case for all. There were times in the past where information system was just a vague concept on the business sector. Most have none and if they had one, they were not explicitly defined as a department or a sector in the company. There were just mere objects that exist in the company. However, with the advent and rapid shift of technology, information system slowly became recognized and identified as a crucial and high potential investment for most businesses. From that point on, information system became a crucial part in the planning process in companies.

Since I have clearly defined what a business plan and an information system plan is, it is now time to iterate their difference and relationship with each other.
The main difference of information system plan with business plan is that an ISP is just a part of the business plan. One of the best strategies in making a business plan is developing a plan on how to effectively and efficiently use IS to its highest potential for the benefit of the organization as a whole. This is where information system planning comes in. An information system plan is developed in order to effectively manage the IS resources without compromising the business plan of an organization.

As the definitions I mention above suggest, a business plan is the overall plan of an organization. As a general plan, it can include subdivisions to clearly define the different parts of the overall plan. These subdivisions can be different for every company or organization depending on its type and applications. Some of these subdivisions can include a financial management plan, a marketing strategy plan or an information system plan. Although, each subdivision can be defined independently, they are strongly connected to each other because they are all part of the overall plan. As an example, you cannot define an information system plan without affecting the financial management plan and vice versa. They strongly relate to its other that any change in a certain plan can affect all the other subdivision plans for the organization as well.

In conclusion, although a business plan and information system plan of an organization may have different level of scope in an organization, they both exist in an organization for the same thing. They exist so that an organization can effectively and efficiently use all of its resources for success without compromising the established vision of the said organization.

References:
Gorman, Michael M. (September 1999). “Information System Plan”. Date Retrieved: February 17, 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262

Russell, M. (2007, February 6). Business Plan - Purpose and Objectives. Retrieved February 17, 2010, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Business-­Plan-­-­-­Purpose-­and-­Objectives&id=445062

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plan

What should be the nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS 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. For-profit 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. When managing a business, a business plan, or B-Plan, is often confused with the term Marketing Plan. When the existing business is to assume a major change or when planning a new venture - a 3 to 5 year business plan is essential.
Business planning is about results. You need to make the contents of your plan match your purpose. Don’t accept a standard outline just because it’s there.

What is a business plan?
A business plan is any plan that works for a business to look ahead, allocate resources, focus on key points, and prepare for problems and opportunities.
Unfortunately, many people think of business plans only for starting a new business or applying for business loans. But they are also vital for running a business, whether or not the business needs new loans or new investments. Businesses need plans to optimize growth and development according to priorities.

What’s a startup plan?
A simple startup plan includes a summary, mission statement, keys to success, market analysis, and break-even analysis. This kind of plan is good for deciding whether or not to proceed with a plan, to tell if there is a business worth pursuing, but it is not enough to run a business with.
Is there a standard business plan?
A normal business plan (one that follows the advice of business experts) includes a standard set of elements, as shown below. Plan formats and outlines vary, but generally a plan will include components such as descriptions of the company, product or service, market, forecasts, management team, and financial analysis.
Your plan will depend on your specific situation. For example, description of the management team is very important for investors while financial history is most important for banks. However, if you’re developing a plan for internal use only, you may not need to include all the background details that you already know. Make your plan match its purpose.

What is most important in a plan?
It depends on the case, but usually it’s the cash flow analysis and specific implementation details.
Cash flow is both vital to a company and hard to follow. Cash is usually misunderstood as profits, and they are different. Profits don’t guarantee cash in the bank. Lots of profitable companies go under because of cash flow problems. It just isn’t intuitive.
Implementation details are what make things happen. Your brilliant strategies and beautifully formatted planning documents are just theory unless you assign responsibilities, with dates and budgets, follow up with those responsible, and track results. Business plans are really about getting results and improving your company.

Can you suggest a standard outline?
If you have the main components, the order doesn’t matter that much, but here’s the outline order we suggest in Business Plan Pro software:
Executive Summary: Write this last. It’s just a page or two of highlights.
Company Description: Legal establishment, history, start-up plans, etc.
Product or Service: Describe what you’re selling. Focus on customer benefits.
Market Analysis: You need to know your market, customer needs, where they are, how to reach them, etc. Strategy and Implementation: Be specific. Include management responsibilities with dates and budget.
Management Team: Include backgrounds of key members of the team, personnel strategy, and details.
Financial Plan: Include profit and loss, cash flow, balance sheet, break-even analysis, assumptions, business ratios, etc.

View an expanded business plan outline
We don’t recommend developing the plan in the same order you present it as a finished document. For example, although the Executive Summary comes as the first section of a business plan, we recommend writing it after everything else is done.

What can help me write a business plan?
It can be helpful to view real sample business plans to get ideas for your own business plan.
This free fill-in-the-blanks business plan template follows the format that is preferred by the SBA and lenders and can be a useful guide when writing your plan.
As mentioned before, reviewing a standard business plan outline can also be a good starting point.


What is Information System plan?
A process for developing a strategy and plans for aligning information systems with the business strategies of an organization.

Rationale for an Information Systems Plan
Every year, $300-700 million dollar corporations spend about 5% of their gross income on information systems and their supports. That's from about $15,000,000 to $35,000,000! A significant part of those funds support enterprise databases, a philosophy of database system applications that enable corporations to research the past, control the present, and plan for the future.
Even though an information system costs from $1,000,000 to $10,000,000, and even through most chief information officers (CIOs) can specify exactly how much money is being spent for hardware, software, and staff, CIOs cannot however state with any degree of certainty why one system is being done this year versus next, why it is being done ahead of another, or finally, why it is being done at all.
Many enterprises do not have model-based information systems development environments that allow system designers to see the benefits of rearranging an information systems development schedule. Consequently, the questions that cannot be answered include:
What effect will there be on the overall schedule if an information system is purchased versus developed?
At what point does it pay to hire an abnormal quantity of contract staff to advance a schedule?
What is the long term benefit from 4GL versus 3GL?
Is it better to generate 3GL than to generate/use a 4GL?
What are the real costs of distributed software development over centralized development?

If these questions were transformed and applied to any other component of a business (e.g., accounting, manufacturing, distribution and marketing), and remained unanswered, that unit's manager would surely be fired!

We not only need answers to these questions NOW!, we also need them quickly, cost effectively, and in a form that they can be modeled and changed in response to unfolding realities. This paper provides a brief review of a successful 10-step strategy that answers these questions.

Too many half-billion dollar organizations have only a vague notion of the names and interactions of the existing and under development information systems. Whenever they need to know, a meeting is held among the critical few, an inventory is taken, interactions confirmed, and accomplishment schedules are updated.

This ad hoc information systems plan was possible only because all design and development was centralized, the only computer was a main-frame, and the past was acceptable prologue because budgets were ever increasing, schedules always slipping, and information was not yet part of the corporation's critical edge.

Well, today is different, really different! Budgets are decreasing, and slipped schedules are being cited as preventing business alternatives. Confounding the computing environment are different operating systems, DBMSs, development tools, telecommunications (LAN, WAN, Intra-, Inter-, and Extra-net), and distributed hard- and software.

Rather than having centralized, long-range planning and management activities that address these problems, today's business units are using readily available tools to design and build ad hoc stop-gap solutions. These ad hoc systems not only do not interconnect, support common semantics, or provide synchronized views of critical corporate policy, they are soon to form the almost impossible to comprehend confusion of systems and data from which systems order and semantic harmony must spring.

Not only has the computing landscape become profoundly different and more difficult to comprehend, the need for just the right--and correct--information at just the right time is escalating. Late or wrong information is worse than no information.

Information systems managers need a model of their information systems environment. A model that is malleable. As new requirements are discovered, budgets modified, new hardware/software introduced, this model must be such that it can reconstitute the information systems plan in a timely and efficient manner.
Characteristics of a Quality ISP

A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful.
Timely-The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
Useable-The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
Maintainable-The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
Quality -While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
Reproducible-The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.

Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.

ISP Within the Context of the Meta data Environment
The information systems plan is the plan by which databases and information systems of the enterprise are accomplished in a timely manner. A key facility through which the ISP obtains its Adata@ is the meta data repository. The domain of the meta data repository is set forth in Figure 1, and, as seen through Figure 1, persons through their role within an organization perform functions in the accomplishment of enterprise missions, they have information needs. These information needs reflect the state of certain enterprise resources such as finance, people, and products that are known to the enterprises. The states are created through business information systems and databases.
The majority of the meta data employed to develop the ISP resides in the meta entities supporting the enterprise=s resource life cycles (see TDAN issue #7, December 1998, Resource Life Cycle Analysis), the databases and information systems, and project management. All these meta entities are depicted within the meta data repository meta model.

The ISP Steps
The information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner.

The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise.
Information Systems Plan Development Steps
1. Create the mission model -The mission model, generally shorter than 30 pages presents end-result characterizations of the essential raison d=etre of the enterprise. Missions are strategic, long range, and a-political because they are stripped of the Awho@ and the Ahow.@
2. Develop a high-level data model-The high-level data model is an Entity Relationship diagram created to meet the data needs of the mission descriptions. No attributes or keys are created.
3. Create the resource life cycles (RLC) and their nodes -Resources are drawn from both the mission descriptions and the high level data model. Resources and their life cycles are the names, descriptions and life cycles of the critical assets of the enterprise, which, when exercised achieve one or more aspect of the missions. Each enterprise resource Alives@ through its resource life cycle.
4. Allocate precedence vectors among RLC nodes Tied together into a enablement network, the resulting resource life cycle network forms a framework of enterprise=s assets that represent an order and set of inter-resource relationships. The enterprise Alives@ through its resource life cycle network.
5. Allocate existing information systems and databases to the RLC nodes The resource life cycle network presents a Alattice-work@onto which the Aas is@ business information systems and databases can be Aattached.@ See for example, the meta model in Figure 2. The Ato-be@ databases and information systems are similarly attached. ADifference projects@ between the Aas-is@ and the Ato-be@ are then formulated. Achievement of all the difference projects is the achievement of the Information Systems Plan.
6. Allocate standard work break down structures (WBS) to each RLC node Detailed planning of the Adifference projects@ entails allocating the appropriate canned work breakdown structures and metrics. Employing WBS and metrics from a comprehensive methodology supports project management standardization, repeatability, and self-learning.
7. Load resources into each WBS node Once the resources are determined, these are loaded into the project management meta entities of the meta data repository, that is, metrics, project, work plan and deliverables. The meta entities are those inferred by Figure 2.
8. Schedule the RLC nodes through a project management package facilities. The entire suite of projects is then scheduled on an enterprise-wide basis. The PERT chart used by project management is the APERT@ chart represented by the Resource Life Cycle enablement network.
9. Produce and review of the ISP The scheduled result is predicable: Too long, too costly, and too ambitious. At that point, the real work starts: paring down the suite of projects to a realistic set within time and budget. Because of the meta data environment (see Figure 1), the integrated project management meta data (see Figure 2), and because all projects are configured against fundamental business-rationale based designs, the results of the inevitable trade-offs can be set against business basics. Although the process is painful, the results can be justified and rationalized.
10. Execute and adjust the ISP through time. As the ISP is set into execution, technology changes occur that affect resource loadings. In this case, only steps 6-9 need to be repeated. As work progresses, the underlying meta data built or used in steps 1-5 will also change. Because a quality ISP is Aautomated@ the recasting of the ISP should only take a week or less.


Collectively, the first nine steps take about 5000 staff hours, or about $500,000. Compared to an IS budget $15-35 million, that's only about 3.0% to 1.0%.
If the pundits are to be believed, that is, that the right information at the right time is the competitive edge, then paying for an information systems plan that is accurate, repeatable, and reliable is a small price indeed.
Executive and Adjusting the ISP Through Time
IT projects are accomplished within distinct development environments. The two most common are: discrete project and release. The discrete project environment is typified by completely encapsulated projects accomplished through a water-fall methodology.
In release environments, there are a number of different projects underway by different organizations and staff of varying skill levels. Once a large number of projects are underway, the ability of the enterprise to know about and manage all the different projects degrades rapidly. That is because the project management environment has been transformed from discrete encapsulated projects into a continuous flow process of product or functionality improvements that are released on a set time schedule. Figure 3 illustrates the continuous flow process environment that supports releases. The continuous flow process environment is characterized by:
Multiple, concurrent, but differently scheduled projects against the same enterprise resource
Single projects that affect multiple enterprise resources
Projects that develop completely new capabilities, or changes to existing capabilities within enterprise resources
It is precisely because enterprises have transformed themselves from a project to a release environment that information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained on an enterprise-wide basis are essential.
There are four major sets of activities within the continuous flow process environment. The user/client is represented at the top in the small rectangular box. Each of the ellipses represents an activity targeted to a specific need. The four basic needs are:
Need Identification
Need Assessment
Design
Deployment

The box in the center is the meta data repository. Specification and impact analysis is represented through the left two processes. Implementation design and accomplishment is represented by the right two processes. Two key characteristics should be immediately apparent. First, unlike the water-fall approach, the activities do not flow one to the other. They are disjoint. In fact, they may be done by different teams, on different time schedules, and involve different quantities of products under management. In short, these four activities are independent one from the other. Their only interdependence is through the meta data repository.

The second characteristic flows from the first. Because these four activities are independent one from the other, the enterprise evolves by means of releases rather than through whole systems. If it evolved through whole systems, then the four activities would be connected either in a waterfall or a spiral approach, and the enterprise would be evolving through major upgrades to encapsulated functionality within specific business resources. In contrast, the release approach causes coordinated sets of changes to multiple business resources to be placed into production. This causes simultaneous, enterprise-wide capability upgrades across multiple business resources.

Through this continuous-flow process, several unique features are present:
All four processes are concurrently executing.
Changes to enterprise resources occur in unison, periodically, and in a very controlled manner.
The meta data repository is always contains all the enterprise resource specifications: current or planned. Simply put, if an enterprise resource semantic is not within the meta data repository, it is not enterprise policy.
All changes are planned, scheduled, measured, and subject to auditing, accounting, and traceability.
All documentation of all types is generated from the meta data repository.
Any technique employed to achieve an ISP must be accomplishable with less than 3% of the IT budget. Additionally, it must be timely, useable, maintainable, able to be iterated into a quality product, and reproducible. IT organizations, once they have completed their initial set of databases and business information systems will find themselves transformed from a project to a release environment.
The continuous flow environment then becomes the only viable alternative for moving the enterprise forward. It is precisely because of the release environment that enterprise-wide information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained are essential.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plan
http://articles.bplans.com/writing-a-business-plan/what-is-a-business-plan/33
http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262
http://viu.eng.rpi.edu/publications/strpaper.pdf
http://www.blastasia.com/PDF_files_for_web/Formulating%20an%20ISSP.pdf
http://www.longtermcare.gov/LTC/Main_Site/Planning_LTC/Importance/index.aspx
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Bre-Cap/Business-Planning.htmll

What should be the nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan?


A Business Plan is a written document describing the nature of the business, the sales and marketing strategy, and the financial background, and containing a projected profit and loss statement
A business plan is also a road map that provides directions so a business can plan its future and helps it avoid bumps in the road. The time you spend making your business plan thorough and accurate, and keeping it up-to-date, is an investment that pays big dividends in the long term.
Your business plan should conform to generally accepted guidelines regarding form and content. Each section should include specific elements and address relevant questions that the people who read your plan will most likely ask.


Generally, a business plan has the following components:

Title Page and Contents
A business plan should be presented in a binder with a cover listing the name of the business, the name(s) of the principal(s), address, phone number, e-mail and website addresses, and the date. You don't have to spend a lot of money on a fancy binder or cover. Your readers want a plan that looks professional, is easy to read and is well-put-together.
Include the same information on the title page. If you have a logo, you can use it, too. A table of contents follows the executive summary or statement of purpose, so that readers can quickly find the information or financial data they need.

Executive Summary
The executive summary, or statement of purpose, succinctly encapsulates your reason for writing the business plan. The summary or statement should be no more than half a page in length and should touch on the following key elements:
• Business concept describes the business, its product, the market it serves and the business' competitive advantage.
• Financial features include financial highlights, such as sales and profits.
• Financial requirements state how much capital is needed for startup or expansion, how it will be used and what collateral is available.
• Current business position furnishes relevant information about the company, its legal form of operation, when it was founded, the principal owners and
key personnel.
• Major achievements points out anything noteworthy, such as patents, prototypes, important contracts regarding product development, or results from
test marketing that have been conducted.

Description of the Business The business description usually begins with a short explanation of the industry. When describing the industry, discuss what's going on now as well as the outlook for the future. Do the necessary research so you can provide information on all the various markets within the industry, including references to new products or developments that could benefit or hinder your business. Base your observations on reliable data and be sure to footnote and cite your sources of information when necessary. Remember that bankers and investors want to know hard facts--they won't risk money on assumptions or conjecture.
When describing your business, say which sector it falls into (wholesale, retail, food service, manufacturing, hospitality and so on), and whether the business is new or established. Then say whether the business is a sole proprietorship, partnership, C or Sub chapter S corporation. Next, list the business' principals and state what they bring to the business. Continue with information on who the business' customers are, how big the market is, and how the product or service is distributed and marketed.
Description of the Product or Service The business description can be a few paragraphs to a few pages in length, depending on the complexity of your plan. If your plan isn't too complicated, keep your business description short, describing the industry in one paragraph, the product in another, and the business and its success factors in two or three more paragraphs.
When you describe your product or service, make sure your reader has a clear idea of what you're talking about. Explain how people use your product or service and talk about what makes your product or service different from others available in the market. Be specific about what sets your business apart from those of your competitors.
Then explain how your business will gain a competitive edge and why your business will be profitable. Describe the factors you think will make it successful. If your business plan will be used as a financing proposal, explain why the additional equity or debt will make your business more profitable. Give hard facts, such as "new equipment will create an income stream of $10,000 per year" and briefly describe how.
Other information to address here is a description of the experience of the other key people in the business. Whoever reads your business plan will want to know what suppliers or experts you've spoken to about your business and their response to your idea. They may even ask you to clarify your choice of location or reasons for selling this particular product.

Market Analysis
A thorough market analysis will help you define your prospects as well as help you establish pricing, distribution, and promotional strategies that will allow your company to be successful vis-à-vis your competition, both in the short and long term.
Begin your market analysis by defining the market in terms of size, demographics, structure, growth prospects, trends, and sales potential. Next, determine how often your product or service will be purchased by your target market. Then figure out the potential annual purchase. Then figure out what percentage of this annual sum you either have or can attain. Keep in mind that no one gets 100 percent market share, and that a something as small as 25 percent is considered a dominant share. Your market share will be a benchmark that tells you how well you're doing in light of your market-planning projections.
You'll also have to describe your positioning strategy. How you differentiate your product or service from that of your competitors and then determine which market niche to fill is called "positioning." Positioning helps establish your product or service's identity within the eyes of the purchaser. A positioning statement for a business plan doesn't have to be long or elaborate, but it does need to point out who your target market is, how you'll reach them, what they're really buying from you, who your competitors are, and what your USP (unique selling proposition) is.
How you price your product or service is perhaps your most important marketing decision. It's also one of the most difficult to make for most small business owners, because there are no instant formulas.

Many methods of establishing prices are available to you, but these are among the most common.
• Cost-plus pricing is used mainly by manufacturers to assure that all costs, both fixed and variable, are covered and the desired profit percentage is
attained.
• Demand pricing is used by companies that sell their products through a variety of sources at differing prices based on demand.
• Competitive pricing is used by companies that are entering a market where there's already an established price and it's difficult to differentiate one
product from another.
• Markup pricing is used mainly by retailers and is calculated by adding your desired profit to the cost of the product.

You'll also have to determine distribution, which includes the entire process of moving the product from the factory to the end user. Make sure to analyze your competitors' distribution channels before deciding whether to use the same type of channel or an alternative that may provide you with a strategic advantage.
Finally, your promotion strategy should include all the ways you communicate with your markets to make them aware of your products or services. To be successful, your promotion strategy should address advertising, packaging, public relations, sales promotions and personal sales.

Competitive Analysis

The purpose of the competitive analysis is to determine:
• the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors within your market.
• strategies that will provide you with a distinct advantage.
• barriers that can be developed to prevent competition from entering your market.
• any weaknesses that can be exploited in the product development cycle.

The first step in a competitor analysis is to identify both direct and indirect competition for your business, both now and in the future. Once you've grouped your competitors, start analyzing their marketing strategies and identifying their vulnerable areas by examining their strengths and weaknesses. This will help you determine your distinct competitive advantage.
Whoever reads your business plan should be very clear on who your target market is, what your market niche is, exactly how you'll stand apart from your competitors, and why you'll be successful doing so.

Operations and Management
The operations and management component of your plan is designed to describe how the business functions on a continuing basis. The operations plan highlights the logistics of the organization, such as the responsibilities of the management team, the tasks assigned to each division within the company, and capital and expense requirements related to the operations of the business.


Financial Components of Your Business Plan

After defining the product, market and operations, the next area to turn your attention to are the three financial statements that form the backbone of your business plan: the income statement, cash flow statement, and balance sheet.
The income statement is a simple and straightforward report on the business' cash-generating ability. It is a scorecard on the financial performance of your business that reflects when sales are made and when expenses are incurred. It draws information from the various financial models developed earlier such as revenue, expenses, capital (in the form of depreciation), and cost of goods. By combining these elements, the income statement illustrates just how much your company makes or loses during the year by subtracting cost of goods and expenses from revenue to arrive at a net result, which is either a profit or loss. In addition to the income statements, include a note analyzing the results. The analysis should be very short, emphasizing the key points of the income statement. Your CPA can help you craft this.

The cash flow statement is one of the most critical information tools for your business, since it shows how much cash you'll need to meet obligations, when you'll require it and where it will come from. The result is the profit or loss at the end of each month and year. The cash flow statement carries both profits and losses over to the next month to also show the cumulative amount. Running a loss on your cash flow statement is a major red flag that indicates not having enough cash to meet expenses-something that demands immediate attention and action.
The cash flow statement should be prepared on a monthly basis during the first year, on a quarterly basis for the second year, and annually for the third year. The following 17 items are listed in the order they need to appear on your cash flow statement. As with the income statement, you'll need to analyze the cash flow statement in a short summary in the business plan. Once again, the analysis doesn't have to be long and should cover highlights only. Ask your CPA for help.

The last financial statement you'll need is a balance sheet. Unlike the previous financial statements, the balance sheet is generated annually for the business plan and is, more or less, a summary of all the preceding financial information broken down into three areas: assets, liabilities and equity.
Balance sheets are used to calculate the net worth of a business or individual by measuring assets against liabilities. If your business plan is for an existing business, the balance sheet from your last reporting period should be included. If the business plan is for a new business, try to project what your assets and liabilities will be over the course of the business plan to determine what equity you may accumulate in the business. To obtain financing for a new business, you'll need to include a personal financial statement or balance sheet.
In the business plan, you'll need to create an analysis for the balance sheet just as you need to do for the income and cash flow statements. The analysis of the balance sheet should be kept short and cover key points.

Supporting Documents
In this section, include any other documents that are of interest to your reader, such as your resume; contracts with suppliers, customers, or clients, letters of reference, letters of intent, copy of your lease and any other legal documents, tax returns for the previous three years, and anything else relevant to your business plan.
Some people think you don't need a business plan unless you're trying to borrow money. Of course, it's true that you do need a good plan if you intend to approach a lender--whether a banker, a venture capitalist or any number of other sources--for startup capital. But a business plan is more than a pitch for financing; it's a guide to help you define and meet your business goals.
Just as you wouldn't start off on a cross-country drive without a road map, you should not embark on your new business without a business plan to guide you. A business plan won't automatically make you a success, but it will help you avoid some common causes of business failure, such as under-capitalization or lack of an adequate market.
As you research and prepare your business plan, you'll find weak spots in your business idea that you'll be able to repair. You'll also discover areas with potential you may not have thought about before--and ways to profit from them. Only by putting together a business plan can you decide whether your great idea is really worth your time and investment.



Information System Planning

For a long time relationship between information system functions and corporate strategy was not of much interest to Top Management of firms. Information Systems were thought to be synonymous with corporate data processing and treated as some back-room operation in support of day-to-day mundane tasks. In the 80’s and 90’s, however, there has been a growing realization of the need to make information systems of strategic importance to an organization. Consequently, strategic information systems planning (SISP) is a critical issue. In many industry surveys, improved SISP is often mentioned as the most serious challenge facing IS Managers. 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.

King in his recent article has argued that a strategic capability architecture - a flexible and continuously improving infrastructure of organizational capabilities – is the primary basis for a company's sustainable competitive advantage. He has emphasized the need for continuously updating and improving the strategic capabilities architecture. SISP is the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business information models together with the evaluation of risk, current needs and requirements. The result is an action plan showing the desired course of events necessary to align information use and needs with the strategic direction of the company. The same article emphasizes the need to note that SISP is a management function and not a technical one. This is consistent with the earlier distinction between the older data processing views and the modern strategic importance view of Information Systems. SISP thus is used to identify the best targets for purchasing and installing new management information systems and help an organization maximize the return on its information technology investment. A portfolio of computer-based applications is identified that will assist an organization in executing its business plans and realize its business goals. There is a growing realization that the application of information technology (IT) to a firm’s strategic activities has been one of the most common and effective ways to improve business performance.


The Perspective of Strategic Information Systems Planning

In order to put the planning for strategic information systems in perspective, the evolution of
information systems according to the three-era model of John Ward, et al.(1990) is pertinent.
According to this model there are three distinct, albeit overlapping, eras of information systems,
dating back to the 60’s. The relationship over time of the three eras of information systems is

ERA CHARACTERISTICS
60s Data Processing (DP) Standalone computers, remote from users,
cost reduction function.

70s &80s ManagementInformation Distributed process, interconnected, regulated by
Systems(MIS) management service, supporting the business, user driven.

80s &90s Strategic Information Networked, integrated systems, available and supportive to
Systems (SIS) users, relate to business strategy, enable the business -
business driven.

Table 1: The Three Era Model of IS

Applications in the overall Data Processing (DP), Management Information Systems (MIS)
and Strategic Information Systems (SIS) area need to be planned and managed according to their
existing and future contribution to the business. Traditional portfolio models consider the
relationship of systems to each other and the tasks being performed rather than the relationship with
business success. A portfolio model derived from McFarlan (1984) considers the contribution of
IS/IT to the business now and in the future based on its industry impact. Based on this model
applications are divided into four categories, as shown here:

Some characteristics of strategic IS planning are:
• Main task: strategic/competitive advantage, linkage to business strategy.
• Key objective: pursuing opportunities, integrating IS and business strategies
• Direction from: executives/senior management and users, coalition of users/management and
information systems.
• Main approach: entrepreneurial (user innovation), multiple (bottom-up development, top down
analysis, etc.) at the same time.

Strategic Information Systems Planning in the present SIS era is not an easy task because
such a process is deeply embedded in business processes. These systems need to cater to the
strategic demands of organizations, i.e., serving the business goals and creating competitive
advantage as well as meeting their data processing and MIS needs. The key point here is that
organizations have to plan for information systems not merely as tools for cutting costs but as means
to adding value. The magnitude of this change in perspective of IS/IT’s role in organizations is
highlighted in a Business Week article, ‘The Technology Payoff’ (Business Week, June 14, 1993).
According to this article, throughout the 1980s US businesses invested a staggering $1 trillion in the
information technology. This huge investment did not result in a commensurate productivity gain -
overall national productivity rose at a 1% annual rate compared with nearly 5% in Japan. Using the
information technology merely to automate routine tasks without altering the business processes is
identified as the cause of the above productivity paradox. As IT is used to support breakthrough
ideas in business processes, essentially supporting direct value adding activities instead of merely
cost saving, it has resulted in major productivity gains. In 1992, productivity rose nearly 3% and
the corporate profits went up sharply. According to an MIT study quoted in the above article, the
return on investment in information systems averaged 54% for manufacturing and 68% for all
businesses surveyed. This impact of information technology on re-defining, re-engineering
businesses is likely to continue and it is expected that information technology will play increasingly
important roles in future. For example, Pant, et al. (1994) point out that the emerging vision of
virtual corporations will become a reality only if it is rooted in new visionary information
technology. It is information technology alone which will carve multiple ‘virtual corporations’
simultaneously out of the same physical resources and adapt them without having to change the
actual organizations. Thus, it is obvious that information technology has indeed come a long way in
the SIS era, offering unprecedented possibilities, which, if not cashed on, would turn into


Strategic Information Systems Planning Methodologies

The task of strategic information systems planning is difficult and often time organizations
do not know how to do it. Strategic information systems planning is a major change for
organizations, from planning for information systems based on users’ demands to those based on
business strategy. Also strategic information systems planning changes the planning characteristics
in major ways. For example, the time horizon for planning changes from 1 year to 3 years or more
and development plans are driven by current and future business needs rather than incremental user
needs. Increase in the time horizon is a factor which results in poor response from the top
management to the strategic information systems planning process as it is difficult to hold their
attention for such a long period. Other questions associated with strategic information systems
planning are related to the scope of the planning study, the focus of the planning exercise - corporate
organization vs. strategic business unit, number of studies and their sequence, choosing a strategic
information systems planning methodology or developing one if none is suitable, targets of planning
process and deliverables. Because of the complexity of the strategic information systems planning
process and uniqueness of each organization, there is no one best way to tackle it. Vitale, et al.
(1986) classify SISP methodologies into two categories: impact and alignment. Impact
methodologies help create and justify new uses of IT, while the methodologies in the “alignment”
category align IS objectives with organizational goals.


Key Issues in SISP Methodologies:

Information systems managers when they attempt to implement one of three alignment
methodologieshas also examined the SISP methodologies and has provided some insights into their structure and implementation problems. examined the issue of application of two ‘impact’ methodologies, Porter’s Value Chain Analysis and Wiseman’s Strategic Thrust Methodology. These studies and the insights developed by us form the
basis of this section which provides a critique of the existing methodologies. The detailed list of problems in implementing SISP methodologies has been classified by Lederer and Sethi as resource, planning process, or output related problem associated with the three methodologies. According to this survey, the most severe problem identified by IS managers is the failure to secure top management commitment for carrying out the final plan. The second most
severe problem identified is the requirement for substantial further analysis after the completion of the IS plan. Both these problems are related to the output of the planning process. Besides these top two, six of the next top eight problems are related to the resources required to carry out the strategic information systems planning (success of the plan depends on the team leader, difficulty in finding the team leader meeting the criteria specified in the study, methodology lacking computer support, planning exercise taking long time, etc.). Among the top ten problems encountered while implementing one of these methodologies (or, even while implementing an in-house methodology),
three are common: difficulty in obtaining top management commitment for implementing the
outputs, the requirement of substantial further analysis and difficulty in finding a good team leader.

The results of this survey suggest that IS planners are not particularly satisfied with their methodologies. If the objective of the SISP exercise is to align IS objectives with business goals, then detailed, lengthy and complex SISP may be of limited value. Where the objective is to use IT to impact a business strategy, these methodologies may not generate useful ideas for that purpose. however, point out that the value chain analysis and Wiseman’s strategic methodologies do help in achieving that purpose. Barlow (1990) suggests that the large number of methodologies that have been developed can often ‘add confusion rather than clarity to the (IS) planning process.’


References:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/term/82322.html

http://viu.eng.rpi.edu/publications/strpaper.pdf

What is 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. For-profit 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 plans are decision-making tools. There is no fixed content for a business plan. Rather the content and format of the business plan is determined by the goals and audience. A business plan should contain whatever information is needed to decide whether or not to pursue a goal. For example, a business plan for a non-profit might discuss the fit between the business plan and the organization’s mission. Banks are quite concerned about defaults, so a business plan for a bank loan will build a convincing case for the organization’s ability to repay the loan. Venture capitalists are primarily concerned about initial investment, feasibility, and exit valuation. A business plan for a project requiring equity financingwill need to explain why current resources, upcoming growth opportunities, and sustainable competitive advantage will lead to a high exit valuation. Preparing a business plan draws on a wide range of knowledge from many different business disciplines: finance, human resource management, intellectual property management, supply chain management, operations management, and marketing, among others. It can be helpful to view the business plan as a collection of sub-plans, one for each of the main business disciplines. "... a good business plan can help to make a good business credible, understandable, and attractive to someone who is unfamiliar with the business. Writing a good business plan can’t guarantee success, but it can go a long way toward reducing the odds of failure." A business plan is a written statement of your business; what you want to achieve and how you plan to go about it. It should outline the structure of your business, the product or service, the customer, the growth potential and the financials. But as well as giving information about your business it should also inspire you for the future. It’s a blueprint for what you want to achieve and should give you a clear understanding of how you intend to get there. That’s not to say it should act as a rigid prediction of every future occurrence. You can’t control the future, and the outside circumstances will have an affect on the shape and direction of your business. But a good business plan should at least give you a clear direction to aim for. Every business should have a plan whether it is to open a second shop or float on the stock exchange. It is why you are in business. It helps you to define strategy and, if properly used, will help you involve and motivate key members of staff. It allows you to work out how to make your business a success and can help you avoid failure by plotting the pitfalls along the way. It should outline a realistic target for how that can happen while remaining flexible enough to make changes along the way. By setting out a plan and some targets, you can also monitor your progress and get the business back on track fairly quickly if anything goes wrong. Hossain Rezaei, founder of, Pride Valley Foods, used a tree to plan the growth of his specialty breads business. Each stage of the business was mapped out and it is important to reach each one on budget and on time. When you borrow money explain to your backers how you will spend it and what the next stage for your business is. When you have reached that, you can go back and borrow more. “It is important to do it one step at a time,” he says. His careful planning was crucial in keeping the business on track when a fire destroyed the factory and insurers initially refused to meet the claim. Rezaei kept sight of his original plan but put it on hold while building up the business again. He handed over customers to his competitors, moved back to old premises and approached his backers with an emergency plan. Within six months he had won back his largest customers and the business was back on track. In Rezaei’s case, the business plan was used primarily to guide his own aspirations for the business. However, it’s often the case that a business plan is primarily written to persuade investors, whether it be the bank or private funders, to come on board with your venture. Regardless of whether you need outside funding or not, it’s always a good idea to set out your ideas on paper, even if it’s just a case of looking at your idea from the point of view of a potential investor. It can really highlight areas you haven’t yet considered and help you form a realistic estimate of how much it’s all going to cost, and in what kind of time frame you can expect to become fully open for business.
A business plan is a document used to detail plans for a start-up or existing business. This document is used to describe business goals and strategies, as well as provide a blueprint of financing and marketing plans. Essentially, it provides detailed information about where a company is going and how it will get there. Many experts consider such a plan critical to the success of a business.
Often, a business plan is required when seeking a business loan or investment capital. Investors and loan officials need to know what abusiness owner hopes to accomplish and the steps he or she plans to take to meet goals. Business plans help those in the position to loan money determine whether or not a business is likely to succeed, based on information provided by the owner or owners. A company backed by a well-thought-out business plan is a better loan or investment risk than one with a thrown together or incomplete plan. A business plan is not just useful for obtaining financing. A carefully considered plan can serve as a veritable road map to success for thebusiness owner and company employees. It can help all involved stay on task while striving to achieve goals. Furthermore, this type of planmay be reviewed and revised when necessary, allowing those operating a business to keep the strategies that work, eliminate those that don't, and change objectives as the business evolves.
When preparing a business plan, it is vital to put maximum effort into researching every aspect of your venture. You'll need to include detailed information about everything from the basics of your product or service to how you intend to manage daily operations. If you plan to seek outside financing, you'll need to make your business plan both informative and captivating. By doing so, you'll be able to keep loan officers or investors interested long enough to read the bulk of your plan and, hopefully, decide to provide the financing you need. Your business plan should provide a detailed description of your business, including the products or services you plan to offer, as well as expected expenditures and profits. If you have products to sell, you'll need to include information about the manufacture of those products. A detailed description of the market for your products or services, along with competition comparisons, should be provided as well. You'll also need to include your plans for development, distribution, staffing, funding, and more. Finding help with creating a business plan is not difficult. There are many resources on the Internet that provide step-by-step instructions for creating business plans. There are also many books, computer programs, and business plan kits available for purchase. Likewise, your local public library is likely to have an abundance of resources forbusiness plan creation. Business Planning encompasses all the goals, strategies and actions that you envision taking to ensure your business’s survival and growth. Huge, isn’t it? For convenience, think of business planning as being broken into two large topics; profit-making business planning and contingency business planning.
Profit-making business planning is all the general business planning that must be done to start and run a successful business. The best known example of this type of business planning is the business plan. The business plan isn’t a do-it-and-forget-it business planning exercise but a living document that needs to be updated throughout the lifecycle of your business. Once the business has officially started, profit-making business planning will center on setting and meeting goals and targets. While some businesses make business planning an annual event, business planning is most effective when it’s done frequently and consistently. The business planning process of reviewing progress on business goals and targets and setting new ones should take place at least monthly. Daily business planning is an incredibly effective way for individuals to focus on achieving both their own goals and the goals of the organization.
Contingency business planning (also known as business continuity planning) is the type of business planning that focuses on dealing with crises. A business contingency plan is a proposed implementation plan to deal with some new emergency, event or new information. Defining a business plan can be difficult, as the definition might be different for every organization. A business plan, in its simplest form, will usually define where you want your business to be within a certain period of time (usually five years) and how you plan on getting there. A business plan is as important for starting a business as blueprints are for building your house. When starting a new business, writing a business plan is an important first step to getting started. A business plan will lay out the direction for the future of your company and begin to establish standards for success. A complete business plan should include five-year financial projections. These projections will assist investors with making decisions about your business and help you to know how much funding you will need to get things rolling. A business plan should define how you would like to operate your business. This includes describing the management team, the marketing strategy, and the methods in which you will interact with customers. A business plan might project a strategy that reflects the management style of the founders of the business. The definition should be clear but flexible. Business plans are developed for many purposes. One company might be looking for funding from investors. Another company might be looking for a loan from a bank. Your company might just need to plan out the company’s strategy to make sure it is successful. Whatever the case, every business needs a business plan.
What is a Formal Business Plan?
A formal business plan is a detailed document that usually follows a standard format. Formal business plans are a necessity for securing outside funding for a business, includingSBA loans and private capital. Formal business plans include an appendix area that contains important supporting documents.
What is an Informal Business Plan?
An informal business plan can consist of almost anything. In this case, the definition of a business plan is purely in the eyes of the business owner. Informal business plans may be nothing more than ideas scribbled down on paper. However, the more detailed and accurate the business plan the more useful it is as a guide to conducting business. Informal business plans are not presented to others, they are merely a planning tool for the business owner.
Why are Business Plans Important?
The general notion and old saying of "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail" can hold great meaning for someone who wants to start or operate a business. Even if outside funding is not necessary, it might become necessary as the business grows and if it does not, the business plan is a a valuable tool that can help a business owner understand the market and competition, keys to avoiding business failure. That's why understanding the definition of a business plan is so important.
When properly developed and maintained, a business plan can help to keep focused. In that sense, the answer to the question, "What is a Business Plan?" or "What is the definition of a business plan?" is simply that a business plan is a road map for a business: What it does, who's involved, who is included in its market and why the business should be successful against the competition.
A business plan defines a business and its goals. A good business plan is an essential tool for starting and successfully managing a business. The typical business plan has detailed descriptive information and financial data. Non-financial data in a business plan usually includes a statement of purpose and executive summary, a discussion of marketing methods, a analysis of the competition, details of operating procedures, and bios of key personnel. Financial data for a business plan usually includes current financial statements, pro forma financial projections (typically for three years, by month and by quarter), and a breakeven analysis. The core of the business plan may be supported by legal documents, resumes of the principals, or other information that makes the business plan more informative for potential suppliers, lenders, and other interested parties.
A company's business plan is one of its most important documents. It can be used by managers and executives for internal planning. It can be used as the basis for loan applications from banks and other lenders. It can be used to persuade investors that a company is a good investment. For start-up ventures, the process of preparing a business plan serves as a road map to the future by making entrepreneurs and business owners think through their strategies, evaluate their basic business concepts, recognize their business's limitations, and avoid a variety of mistakes.

What is an Information Systems Plan?
Strategic information systems planning is a disciplined, systematic approach to determining the most effective and efficient means of satisfying organizational information needs. It is a top-down, structured approach which, to be successful, must employ technical and managerial processes in a systems engineering context. Under this approach, the characteristics of the system’s hardware, software, facilities, data, and personnel are identified and defined through detailed design and analysis to achieve the most cost-effective system for satisfying the organization’s needs. The process must consider system life cycle management and the organization’s policy and budget as important integral factors, and include all organizational participants (e.g., managers, users, maintainers, operators, and designers) throughout the process. It is an iterative process in that changes identified during the process must be evaluated to determine their effect on completed analyses. Strategic information systems planning is not a one-time event-it should be revisited periodically to ensure a system’s continued viability in meeting information needs and achieving long-term missions.
Information systems are important tools for effectively meeting organizational objectives. Readily available, complete, and accurate information is essential for making informed and timely decisions. Being unable to obtain needed data, wading through unneeded data, or inefficiently processing needed data wastes resources. The organization must identify its information needs on the basis of a systematic identification and analysis of its mission and functions to be performed, who is to perform them, the information and supporting data needed to perform the functions, and the processes needed to most usefully structure the information. Successful information system development and acquisition must include a rigorous and disciplined process of data gathering, evaluation, and analysis prior to committing significant financial and human resources to any information system development. While implementing such an approach may not preclude all information system acquisition problems, it should produce detailed knowledge of organizational missions and operations, user information needs and alternatives to address those needs, and an open and flexible architecture that is expandable or that can be upgraded to meet future needs. The purpose and use of information system in the beginning was targeted towards reducing manual labor and increasing efficiency and thus reducing cost of doing business. Cost has thus been the ‘primal instinct’ justification for the usage of Information system in companies. Management seems to still use this justification even in today’s day and age because the IT salesman still thinks it’s the best and only way to get management buy-in. Moreover, as most other rationales used for IS have proved hard to sell, both the IT sales teams and their customers find a comfort zone in cost savings. This could also be because both sides (from all their previous experiences) are convinced of their failure before they even start out on a different track. The past experiences, in most cases were times they tried, half heartedly probably, without enough experience and failed. These failures have resulted in the baby being thrown out along with the dirty water.
Characteristics of a Quality ISP
A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful.
Timely- The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
Useable- The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
Maintainable- The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
Quality- While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
Reproducible- The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
The ISP Steps
The information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner.
The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise.
1. Create the mission model- The mission model, generally shorter than 30 pages presents end-result characterizations of the essential raison d=etre of the enterprise. Missions are strategic, long range, and a-political because they are stripped of the Awho and the Ahow.
2. Develop a high-level data model- The high-level data model is an Entity Relationship diagram created to meet the data needs of the mission descriptions. No attributes or keys are created.
3. Create the resource life cycles (RLC) and their nodes- Resources are drawn from both the mission descriptions and the high level data model. Resources and their life cycles are the names, descriptions and life cycles of the critical assets of the enterprise, which, when exercised achieve one or more aspect of the missions. Each enterprise resource Alives through its resource life cycle.
4. Allocate precedence vectors among RLC nodes- Tied together into a enablement network, the resulting resource life cycle network forms a framework of enterprise=s assets that represent an order and set of inter-resource relationships. The enterprise Alives through its resource life cycle network.
5. Allocate existing information systems and databases to the RLC nodes- The resource life cycle network presents a Alattice-work onto which the Aas is business information systems and databases can be Aattached. The Ato-be databases and information systems are similarly attached. ADifference projects@ between the Aas-is and the Ato-be are then formulated. Achievement of all the difference projects is the achievement of the Information Systems Plan.
6. Allocate standard work break down structures (WBS) to each RLC node- Detailed planning of the Adifference projects entails allocating the appropriate canned work breakdown structures and metrics. Employing WBS and metrics from a comprehensive methodology supports project management standardization, repeatability, and self-learning.
7. Load resources into each WBS node- Once the resources are determined, these are loaded into the project management meta entities of the meta data repository, that is, metrics, project, work plan and deliverables.
8. Schedule the RLC nodes through a project management package facilities- The entire suite of projects is then scheduled on an enterprise-wide basis. The PERT chart used by project management is the APERT@ chart represented by the Resource Life Cycle enablement network.
9. Produce and review of the ISP- The scheduled result is predicable: Too long, too costly, and too ambitious. At that point, the real work starts: paring down the suite of projects to a realistic set within time and budget. Because of the meta data environment, the integrated project management meta data, and because all projects are configured against fundamental business-rationale based designs, the results of the inevitable trade-offs can be set against business basics. Although the process is painful, the results can be justified and rationalized.
10. Execute and adjust the ISP through time- As the ISP is set into execution, technology changes occur that affect resource loadings. In this case, only steps 6-9 need to be repeated. As work progresses, the underlying meta data built or used in steps 1-5 will also change. Because a quality ISP is Aautomated at the recasting of the ISP should only take a week or less.
IT projects are accomplished within distinct development environments. The two most common are: discrete project and release. The discrete project environment is typified by completely encapsulated projects accomplished through a water-fall methodology.
In release environments, there are a number of different projects underway by different organizations and staff of varying skill levels. Once a large number of projects are underway, the ability of the enterprise to know about and manage all the different projects degrades rapidly. That is because the project management environment has been transformed from discrete encapsulated projects into a continuous flow process of product or functionality improvements that are released on a set time schedule. Figure 3 illustrates the continuous flow process environment that supports releases. The continuous flow process environment is characterized by:
• Multiple, concurrent, but differently scheduled projects against the same enterprise resource
• Single projects that affect multiple enterprise resources
• Projects that develop completely new capabilities, or changes to existing capabilities within enterprise resources
It is precisely because enterprises have transformed themselves from a project to a release environment that information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained on an enterprise-wide basis are essential.
There are four major sets of activities within the continuous flow process environment. The user/client is represented at the top in the small rectangular box. Each of the ellipses represents an activity targeted to a specific need. The four basic needs are:
• Need Identification
• Need Assessment
• Design
• Deployment
The nature of relationship of business plan and IS Plan is that the basis of the IS Plan is the Business Plan. The hardware and the software components will be based on what type of business are you planning to build because the IS components will help the operations of the business.


http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262
http://www.blastasia.com/PDF_files_for_web/Formulating%20an%20ISSP.pdf
http://viu.eng.rpi.edu/publications/strpaper.pdf
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-business-plan.htm
http://www.startups.co.uk/6678842911547985232/what-is-a-business-plan.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3713/is_199704/ai_n8770932/pg_2/?tag=content;col1
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Assignment # 2
1. What should be the nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan?

On these two different aspects we can see the common factor of it, which is Plan. To make things clear, I will first define what is plan and the importance of planning in the two said aspect or to any activity or process.

A plan is typically any procedure used to achieve an objective. It is a set of intended actions, through which one expects to achieve a goal.
Plans can be formal or informal:
Structured and formal plans, used by multiple people, are more likely to occur in projects, diplomacy, careers, economic development, military campaigns, combat, or in the conduct of other business. In most cases, the absence of a well-laid plan can have adverse effects: for example, a non-robust project plan can cost the organization time and money.
Informal or ad-hoc plans are created by individuals in all of their pursuits.
The most popular ways to describe plans are by their breadth, time frame, and specificity; however, these planning classifications are not independent of one another. For instance, there is a close relationship between the short- and long-term categories and the strategic and operational categories.
It is common for less formal plans to be created as abstract ideas, and remain in that form as they are maintained and put to use. More formal plans as used for business and military purposes, while initially created with and as an abstract thought, are likely to be written down, drawn up or otherwise stored in a form that is accessible to multiple people across time and space. This allows more reliable collaboration in the execution of the plan.

Importance of Planning

The importance of the planning function should be clear to everyone. An outline of the importance of planning function are as follows:

Provides Direction: Planning provides a clear sense of direction to the activities of the organization and to the job behavior of managers and others. It strengthens their confidence in understanding where the organization is heading and what for, how best to make the organization move along the chosen path, and when should they take what measures to achieve the goals of the organization.

Provides opportunity to analyze alternative courses of action: Another source of importance of planning is that it permits managers to examine and analyze alternative course of action with a better understanding of their likely consequences. If managers have an enhanced awareness of the possible future effects of alternative courses of action, for making a decision or for taking any action, they will be able to exercise judgment and proceed cautiously to choose the most feasible and favorable course of action.

Reduces uncertainties: Planning forces managers to shake off their inertia and insular outlook; it induces them to look beyond those noses, beyond today and tomorrow, and beyond immediate concerns. It encourages them to probe and cut through complexities and uncertainties of the environment and to gain control over the elements of change.

Minimizes impulsive and arbitrary decisions: Planning tends to minimize the incidence of impulsive and arbitrary decisions and ad hoc actions; it obviates exclusive dependence on the mercies of luck and chance elements; it reduces the probability of major errors and failures in managerial actions. It injects a measure of discipline in managerial thinking and organizational action. It improves the capability of the organization to assume calculated risks. It increases the freedom and flexibility of managers withing well-defined limits.

King-pin function: As stated earlier, planning is a prime managerial function which provides the basis for the other managerial functions. The organizational structure of task and authority roles is built around organizational plans. The functions of motivation, supervision, leadership and communication are addressed to implementation of plans and achievement of organizational objectives. Managerial control is meaningless without managerial planning. Thus, planning is the king-pin function around which other functions are designed.

Resource Allocation: Planning is means of judicious allocation of strategic and scarce resources of the organization in the best possible manner for achieving strategic goals of the organization. The strategic resources include funds, highly competent executives, technological talent, good contacts with government, exclusive dealer network and so on. If the organization enjoys a distinct advantage in possession of such resources, a careful planning is essential to allocate them into those lines which would strengthen the overall competitive position of the organization.

Resource use efficiency: For an ongoing organization, planning contributes towards a more efficient functioning of the various work units. There is better utilization of the organization's existing assets, resources and capabilities. It prompts managers to close gaps, to plug loopholes, to rectify deficiencies, to reduce wastage and leakages of funds, materials, human efforts and skills so as to bring about an overall improvement in resource use efficiency.

Adaptive responses: Planning tends to improve the ability of the organization to effectively adapt and adjust its activities and directions in response to the changes taking place in the external environment. An adaptive behavior on the part of the organization is essential for its survival as an independent entity. For a business organization, for example, adaptive behavior is critical in technology, markets, products and so on.

Anticipative action: While adaptation is a behavior in reaction and response to some changes in the outside world, it is not enough in some situations. In recognition of this fact, planning stimulates management to act, to take hold initiatives, to anticipate crises and threats and to ward them off, to perceive and seize opportunities ahead of other competitions, and to gain a competitive lead over others. For the purpose, some enterprises establish environmental scanning mechanism as part of their planning systems. Thereby such enterprises are able to direct and control change, instead of being directed and controlled by the pervasive external forces of change.

Integration: Planning is an important process to bring about effective integration of the diverse decisions and activities of the managers not only at a point of time but also over a period of time. It is by reference to the framework provided by planning that managers make major decisions on organizational activities, in an internally consistent manner.

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. For-profit 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 plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have detailed information about the organization or team attempting to reach the goals. With for-profit entities, external stakeholders include investors and customers. External stake-holders of non-profits include donors and the clients of the non-profit's services. For government agencies, external stakeholders include tax-payers, higher-level government agencies, and international lending bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank, various economic agencies of the UN, and development banks.
Internally focused business plans target intermediate goals required to reach the external goals. They may cover the development of a new product, a new service, a new IT system, a restructuring of finance, the refurbishing of a factory or a restructuring of the organization. An internal business plan is often developed in conjunction with a balanced scorecard or a list of critical success factors. This allows success of the plan to be measured using non-financial measures. Business plans that identify and target internal goals, but provide only general guidance on how they will be met are called strategic plans.

Information System Plan

Today, most organizations in all sectors of industry, commerce and government are fundamentally dependent on their information systems. Thus, organizations or companies are increasingly looking toward the application of technology not only to strengthen existing business operations but also to create new opportunities that provide them with a source of competitive advantage.
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.
An Information System Plan or ISP, on the other hand, is basically a plan concentrated on aligning the information systems of an organization to its business plan as a whole. An information system is comprised of the hardware, software and peopleware of an organization. Usually, the term information system is related to using technology as a crucial part of an organization. The term is also used to identify the computer-based system that an organization is using.
According to Michael M. Gorman, the information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner. The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise. Gorman has also identified some of the characteristics that an ISP should have and these are the following:
An ISP should be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.

Relationship between the Business Plan and the Information System Plan

Before, the relationship between the business strategy or plan and the information function was not made interest and awareness of the Top Management of the companies or firms. At that time, information systems were thought to be synonymous with the company data processing and were treated as some back-room operation in support of day-to-day ordinary tasks.
In the 80’s and 90’s, however, there has been a growing realization of the need to make information systems of strategic importance to an organization. As a result, strategic information systems planning (SISP) is a important issue. In many industry surveys, improved SISP is often mentioned as the most serious challenge facing by the Information System managers.

With this, strategic information system planning is the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business information models together with the evaluation of risk, current needs and requirements. The result is an action plan showing the desired course of events necessary to align information use and needs with the strategic direction of the company. Also, an article has emphasized the need to note that SISP is a management function and not a technical one. This is consistent with the earlier distinction between the older data processing (this was first era of three-era model information system application of John Ward) views and the modern strategic importance view of Information Systems. SISP thus is used to identify the best targets for purchasing and installing new management information systems and help an organization maximize the return on its information technology investment. A portfolio of computer-based applications is identified that will assist an organization in executing its business plans and realize its business goals. There is a growing realization that the application of information technology (IT) to a firm’s strategic activities has been one of the most common and effective ways to improve business performance.

The task of strategic information systems planning is difficult and often time organizations do not know how to do it. Strategic information systems planning is a major change for organizations, from planning for information systems based on users’ demands to those based on business strategy and plan.

Conclusion….
Business plan and information system plan are different in definition, but in a sense they should be align to each other for the common good and to one goal and objective of each aspect to achieve. One is made for other, and the other can’t survive without it. An ISP is part of the business plan in general. One of the best strategies in making a business plan is developing a plan on how to effectively and efficiently use IS to its highest potential for the benefit of the organization as a whole. This is where information system planning comes in. An information system plan is developed in order to effectively manage the IS resources without compromising the business plan of an organization.



Wikipedia.com
http://hubpages.com

What should be the nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan?

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. For-profit 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 plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have detailed information about the organization or team attempting to reach the goals. With for-profit entities, external stakeholders include investors and customers. External stake-holders of non-profits include donors and the clients of the non-profit's services. For government agencies, external stakeholders include tax-payers, higher-level government agencies, and international lending bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank, various economic agencies of the UN, and development banks.

Business plans are decision-making tools. There is no fixed content for a business plan. Rather the content and format of the business plan is determined by the goals and audience. A business plan should contain whatever information is needed to decide whether or not to pursue a goal.

For example, a business plan for a non-profit might discuss the fit between the business plan and the organization’s mission. Banks are quite concerned about defaults, so a business plan for a bank loan will build a convincing case for the organization’s ability to repay the loan. Venture capitalists are primarily concerned about initial investment, feasibility, and exit valuation. A business plan for a project requiring equity financing will need to explain why current resources, upcoming growth opportunities, and sustainable competitive advantage will lead to a high exit valuation.

Preparing a business plan draws on a wide range of knowledge from many different business disciplines: finance, human resource management, intellectual property management, supply chain management, operations management, and marketing, among others. It can be helpful to view the business plan as a collection of sub-plans, one for each of the main business disciplines.

A business plan is the cornerstone of starting a business as well as a significant tool for monitoring the progress and growth of a company. With this, having a business plan is essential to the company or business with this following reason:

a. To test the feasibility of your business idea.
Writing a business plan is the best way to test whether or not an idea for starting a business is feasible, other than going out and doing it. The business plan is a business safety net. Writing a business plan can save a great deal of time and money, if working through the business plan reveals that your business idea is unsustainable. With this you can test if having your idea business is feasible, and if not this help freeing you to move on to a new and better idea. To give your new business the best possible chance of success. It is vital to the success of the business. Writing a business plan will ensure that you pay attention to both the broad operational and financial objectives of your new business and the details, such as budgeting and market planning. Taking the time to work through the process of writing a business plan will make for a smoother startup period and fewer unforeseen problems as your business becomes established.

b. To secure funding.
To start a business, it needs to have both operating and start up capital. Some business has their capital from financial institutions such as banks in which they expect that business has a developed business plan. And established businesses usually need money for their business operations. With this, the role of having a business plan will at least gives you an assurance and chance to keep the business operating or maybe an expansion. To make business planning manageable and effective. A business plan is essential if you're thinking of starting a business, but it's also an important tool for established businesses. The company's original business plan needs to be revised as new goals are set, to adopt the changes in business industry. Reviewing the business plan can also help a company or corporation see what goals have been accomplished, what changes need to be made, or what new directions to a company's growth should take.

c. To attract investors.
Having a solid business plan, this is a plus factor to the company in which investors pull towards the company to invest. A company business plan will be the basis of the investor to do some background checks to the company.


Business Plan is really need to:

1. To Map the Future
A business plan is not just required to secure funding at the start-up phase, but is a vital aid to help you manage your business more effectively. By committing your thoughts to paper, you can understand your business better and also chart specific courses of action that need to be taken to improve your business. A plan can detail alternative future scenarios and set specific objectives and goals along with the resources required to achieve these goals.

By understanding your business and the market a little better and planning how best to operate within this environment, you will be well placed to ensure your long-term success.

2. To Support Growth and Secure Funding
Most businesses face investment decisions during the course of their lifetime. Often, these opportunities cannot be funded by free cash flows alone, and the business must seek external funding. However, despite the fact that the market for funding is highly competitive, all prospective lenders will require access to the company’s recent Income Statements/Profit and Loss Statements, along with an up-to-date business plan. In essence the former helps investors understand the past, whereas the business plan helps give them a window on the future.

A well-written business plan can help you convey these points to prospective investors, helping them feel confident in you and in the thoroughness with which you have considered future scenarios. The most crucial component for them will be clear evidence of the company’s future ability to generate sufficient cash flows to meet debt obligations, while enabling the business to operate effectively.

3. To Develop and Communicate a Course of Action
A business plan helps a company assess future opportunities and commit to a particular course of action. By committing the plan to paper, all other options are effectively marginalized and the company is aligned to focus on key activities. The plan can assign milestones to specific individuals and ultimately help management to monitor progress. Once written, a plan can be disseminated quickly and will also prompt further questions and feedback by the readers helping to ensure a more collaborative plan is produced.

4. To Help Manage Cash flow
Careful management of cash flow is a fundamental requirement for all businesses. The reason is quite simple--many businesses fail, not because they are unprofitable, but because they ultimately become insolvent (i.e., are unable to pay their debts as they fall due). While the break-even point--where total revenue equals total costs--is a highly important figure for start-ups, once a business is up and running profitably, it becomes less important.

Cash flow management then becomes more vital when businesses pursue investment opportunities where there are significant cash out flows, in advance of the cash flows coming in. These opportunities need to be assessed against any seasonal variations in the business and the timing of the flows. If you are a ‘cash-only’ business, you can bank the income immediately; however, if you sell on credit, you receive the cash in the future and hence may need to pay some of your own expenses before that income hits your account.
This will put a further strain on the company’s solvency and hence a well structured business plan will help you manage funding requirements in advance.

5. To Support a Strategic Exit
Finally, at some point, the owners of the firm will decide it is time to exit. Considering the likely exit strategy in advance can help inform and direct present day decisions. The aim is to liquidate the investment, so the owner/current investors have the option of cashing out when they want.

Common exit strategies include:
• Initial Public Offering of stock (IPO’s)
• Acquisition by competitors
• Mergers
• Family succession
• Management buy-outs


Other Reasons You Need a Business Plan

a. Deal with displacement.
Displacement is probably by far the most important practical business concept you've never heard of. It goes like this: "Whatever you do is something else you don't do." Displacement lives at the heart of all small-business strategy. At least most people have never heard of it.

b. Hire new people.
This is another new obligation (a fixed cost) that increases your risk. How will new people help your business grow and prosper? What exactly are they supposed to be doing? The rationale for hiring should be in your business plan.
c. Share and explain business objectives with your management team, employees and new hires. Make selected portions of your business plan part of your new employee training.

d. Develop new business alliances.
Use your plan to set targets for new alliances, and selected portions of your plan to communicate with those alliances.
e. Deal with professionals. Share selected highlights or your plans with your attorneys and accountants, and, if this is relevant to you, consultants.

f. Create a new business.
Use a plan to establish the right steps to starting a new business, including what you need to do, what resources will be required, and what you expect to happen.

g. Seek investment for a business, whether it's a startup or not.
Investors need to see a business plan before they decide whether or not to invest. They'll expect the plan to cover all the main points.

In addition, here are some elements of a business plans that you need to follow in order to succeed on you plans. These are tips on how you should start building a business plans:

The Basics
• How Long Should Your Plan Be?
• Who Needs a Business Plan?
• Finding the Right Plan for You
• Types of Plans

Plan Your Plan
• Determine Your Objectives
• Your Financing Goals
• How Will You Use Your Plan
• Assess Your Company's Potential

Elements of a Business Plan
• Executive Summary
• Business Description
• Market Strategies
• Competitive Analysis
• Design and Development Plan
• Operations and Management Plans
• Financial Components

Get Help With Your Plan
• Hiring a Consultant
• Organizations
• State-By-State List of Commerce Departments
• Software and Books


Typical structure for a business plan for a start up venture
• cover page and table of contents
• executive summary
• business description
• business environment analysis
• industry background
• competitive analysis
• market analysis
• marketing plan
• operations plan
• management summary
• financial plan
• attachments and milestones


Uses of Business Plan

1. Venture capital
• Business plan contests - provides a way for venture capitals to find promising projects
Public offerings.
• In a public offering, potential investors can evaluate perspectives of issuing company within corporations.

2. Fundraising
Fundraising is the primary purpose for many business plans, since they are related to the inherent probable success/failure of the company risk.

3. Total quality management
Total quality management (TQM) is a business management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. TQM has been widely used in manufacturing, education, call centers, government, and service industries, as well as NASA space and science programs.

4. Management by objective
Management by objectives (MBO) is a process of agreeing upon objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they are in the organization.


Information System Plan

In a very broad sense, the term information system is frequently used to refer to the interaction between people, processes, data and technology. In this sense, the term is used to refer not only to the information and communication technology (ICT) an organization uses, but also to the way in which people interact with this technology in support of business processes.

Some make a clear distinction between information systems, ICT and business processes. Information systems are distinct from information technology in that an information system is typically seen as having an ICT component. Information systems are also different from business processes. Information systems help to control the performance of business processes.

Alter argues for an information system as a special type of work system. A work system is a system in which humans and/or machines perform work using resources (including ICT) to produce specific products and/or services for customers. An information system is a work system whose activities are devoted to processing (capturing, transmitting, storing, retrieving, manipulating and displaying) information.

Part of the difficulty in defining the term information system is due to vagueness in the definition of related terms such as system and information. Beynon-Davies argues for a clearer terminology based in systematics and semiotics. He defines an information system as an example of a system concerned with the manipulation of signs. An information system is a type of socio-technical system. An information system is a mediating construct between actions and technology.

As such, information systems inter-relate with data systems on the one hand and activity systems on the other. An information system is a form of communication system in which data represent and are processed as a form of social memory. An information system can also be considered a semi-formal language which supports human decision making and action.Information systems are the primary focus of study for the information systems discipline and for organizational informatics.

Today, most organizations in all sectors of industry, commerce and government are fundamentally dependent on their information systems. Thus, organizations or companies are increasingly looking toward the application of technology not only to strengthen existing business operations but also to create new opportunities that provide them with a source of competitive advantage.

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.

The information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner.

The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise.

IT projects are accomplished within distinct development environments. The two most common are: discrete project and release. The discrete project environment is typified by completely encapsulated projects accomplished through a water-fall methodology.

In release environments, there are a number of different projects underway by different organizations and staff of varying skill levels. Once a large number of projects are underway, the ability of the enterprise to know about and manage all the different projects degrades rapidly. That is because the project management environment has been transformed from discrete encapsulated projects into a continuous flow process of product or functionality improvements that are released on a set time schedule. The continuous flow process environment is characterized by:

• Multiple, concurrent, but differently scheduled projects against the same enterprise resource
• Single projects that affect multiple enterprise resources
• Projects that develop completely new capabilities, or changes to existing capabilities within enterprise resources

Information Systems Planning, or 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. King (King, 1995) in his recent article has argued that a strategic capability architecture - a flexible and continuously improving infrastructure of organizational capabilities – is the primary basis for a company's sustainable competitive advantage. He has emphasized the need for continuously updating and improving the strategic capabilities architecture.” -Somendra Pant and Cheng Hsu.

Five distinct characteristics of a quality ISP that must exhibit before it is useful are given below:

a. Timely The ISP must be timely.
An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.

b. Useable The ISP must be useable.
It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.

c. Maintainable The ISP must be maintainable.
New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.

d. Quality While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try.
As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.

e. Reproducible The ISP must be reproducible.
That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.

Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.
Any technique employed to achieve an ISP must be accomplishable with less than 3% of the IT budget. Additionally, it must be timely, useable, maintainable, able to be iterated into a quality product, and reproducible. IT organizations, once they have completed their initial set of databases and business information systems will find themselves transformed from a project to a release environment.

The continuous flow environment then becomes the only viable alternative for moving the enterprise forward. It is precisely because of the release environment that enterprise-wide information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained are essential.


Stages of Information System Planning:

1.Strategic planning
A) derivation from the organizational plan
B) Strategic fit with organizational culture
C) Strategy set transformation

2.Information requirement analysis
A) Define underlying organizational requirements
B) Develop sub system matrix
C) Define and evaluate information requirements for organizational sub-systems

3.Resource Allocation
A) Return on investment
B) Charge out
C) Portfolio approach
D) Steering committees

4.Project Planning
A)milestones
B)critical path method
C)Gantt chart


Relationship between the Business Plan and the Information System Plan

Before, the relationship between the business strategy or plan and the information function was not made interest and awareness of the Top Management of the companies or firms. At that time, information systems were thought to be synonymous with the company data processing and were treated as some back-room operation in support of day-to-day ordinary tasks.

In the 80’s and 90’s, however, there has been a growing realization of the need to make information systems of strategic importance to an organization. As a result, strategic information systems planning (SISP) is a important issue. In many industry surveys, improved SISP is often mentioned as the most serious challenge facing by the Information System managers.

With this, strategic information system planning is the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business information models together with the evaluation of risk, current needs and requirements. The result is an action plan showing the desired course of events necessary to align information use and needs with the strategic direction of the company. Also, an article has emphasized the need to note that SISP is a management function and not a technical one. This is consistent with the earlier distinction between the older data processing (this was first era of three-era model information system application of John Ward) views and the modern strategic importance view of Information Systems. SISP thus is used to identify the best targets for purchasing and installing new management information systems and help an organization maximize the return on its information technology investment. A portfolio of computer-based applications is identified that will assist an organization in executing its business plans and realize its business goals. There is a growing realization that the application of information technology (IT) to a firm’s strategic activities has been one of the most common and effective ways to improve business performance.


Furthermore, for the relationship of Business Plan and Information System Plan: In making information system plan, it’s not just a simple plan that caters the current issue, but it should be a strategic plan to cater a wide scope of interest in the field of information technology. Strategic planning is actually aims to cater the major change of the organization from planning for information systems based on users’ demands to those based on business strategy. Information System Plan focuses in improving the management side and the to improve the performance of the business while on the other hand a Business Plan is focusing in the attainment of the goals of the business in short it gives more attention to the business side. Business-planning methods help people develop detailed plans at lower levels. Business-driven data modeling methods then help them to identify their information needs, based on those developed plans. Identified information is then provided. The Strategic Model was analyzed to identify Business Activities and develop Project Plans for data modeling. Activities were identified which management should assess, to identify priorities. These activities will become priority projects to be developed and delivered early to provide maximum benefit of any organization. The Strategic Information System Plan will make Business Plan to align its information systems directly with its strategic plans.



References:
http://www.tn.gov/finance/oir/planning/ispprocess.pdf
http://viu.eng.rpi.edu/publications/strpaper.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plan
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_information_system_plan
http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_system
http://www.gaebler.com/Why-Are-Business-Plans-Important.htm