Business/IT Alignment in Practice: Lessons Learned From a Requirements Project at P&G

One of the main objectives of the alignment of Business and IT in both small and large organizations is to improve the chances for an IT department to provide services that result in business success. An essential phase for this alignment is the definition of business requirements. In this paper we describe the successful use of a blend of industrial and academic requirements methods for an IT system development at Procter and Gamble, (P&G), UK. We identify two main elements for the success of this phase: (1) the combination of methods from P&G and academia, (2) the focus of P&G’s IT department on providing business solutions. This shift is accompanied by a move from writing specifications of IT systems towards defining business requirements. We dis-cuss how these elements explain the success of this phase and propose research directions that may ease the introduction and use of requirements definition methods in organizations.