Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1. IT governance for business sustainability
in the organizational structure and IT resources
virtualization opportunities lead to determining
a new organizational strategy. Therefore, the
strategy realization must be followed by enter-
prise engineering and virtualization opportunities
analysis as well as the utilization of the feedback
for the strategy re-formulation. The business
strategy can be identified with a selected way of
creating a fit between external environment and
internal resources and capabilities. Business and
IT strategy are evaluated in the aspect of their
internal consistency, ability to be suitable and
adaptable to the changing business environment,
abilities to ensure competitive advantage or just
their flexibility. A comprehensive representation
of a business sustainability model is needed to
understand its dynamic behavior, processes, re-
sources, internal and external stakeholders and
the constraints. Business modeling by processes
facilitates developing business strategy, conduct-
ing business operations and designing informa-
tion systems aligned with business organization
and procedures. In this chapter, the sustainability
model is an integrated model of environmental,
informational, social and economic dimensions of
business that helps to understand the complexities
and impact of sustainability issues (see Figure 1).
The sustainable business development approach
begins with developing sustainable business
strategies and applying these strategies to tacti-
cal decision making and operational procedures,
which in turn requires reorganization and redesign
of business processes.
There are three points to the strategic planning
process i.e. identifying top priorities related to
sustainable development, making strategies op-
erational, recognition of risk and business op-
portunities. The reformulation and redesign of the
business and IT strategy can be realized through
comprehensive modeling of a business using
critical success factors and key performance in-
dicators (see Figure 1). Existing enterprise systems
may not capture the data required for sustain-
ability modeling and reporting.
The IT governance for sustainability is de-
termined by business strategy, management ap-
proach, performance indicators, IT strategy, IT
management and virtualization opportunities. The
economic dimension of sustainability concerns the
organization's impact on the economic conditions
of its stakeholders and on economic systems at
local, national and global levels. Economic per-
formance indicators cover economic performance
measures (e.g. financial implications and other
risks as well as social responsibility measures),
image on markets and indirect economic impacts.
The environmental dimension of sustainability
concerns an organization's impacts on living and
