Bridging IT requirements to competitive advantage: The concept of IT value planning

As other investments within an enterprise, information technologies should support the business strategy of a company and provide value to it. IT projects and their requirement engineering must include aspects of competitive gains in accordance to the strategic position of the company. I suggest that IT managers and engineers must take competitive strategy into account when specifying the requirements for a new IT product and check that its operation supports competitive objectives. This paper introduces the concept of IT value planning that portrays the relation between competitive advantage as defined in enterprise strategy and requirements collections as part of IT projects. Furthermore, hypotheses on the links between both variables are presented along with the research approach.