Assessing a complex uncertain and disruptive technology environment for better it alignment

Busi ness and Information Systems (IS) alignment is a key management issue and has been largely investigated. Yet, little research shows companies how a fit between these "two worlds" can be achieved. The assumption of this paper is that making explicit the business model can contribute to improving the business/IT alignment. Moreover information systems supporting environmental scanning, strategic or competitive intelligence, and technology assessment, which are of prime importance for organizations, are much less investigated. This paper also aims at deriving a theoretical framework for assessing a technology environment from its properties such as complexity, uncertainty and disruptiveness. In the next section, the internal alignment is considered and the role of a formally defined business model is outlined. We propose a Business Model Ontology to formulate, understand, analyse and share a company's business model. The third section deals with the second level of alignment and aims at suggesting a framework and its associated tools for assessing technology environments. The fourth section sketches a scenario approach for integrating assumptions for the future, impacts on business models and possible changes when designing information systems.