Aligning IT Strategy with Business Strategy through the Balanced Scorecard in a Multinational Pharmaceutical Company

In this article, we look at the use of the balanced scorecard and how it can be used to align business and IT strategies. In particular, we have made a study of how the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca (AZ) uses their method called the business performance management (BPeM). We have related this to the balanced scorecard and compared how they have broken down strategies, objectives, targets and measurements on both the business and IT sides of the company to see if they have alignment between business and IT. We have analysed the results of the case study in two parts firstly, a review against Henderson´s and Venkatraman´s strategic alignment mode (1999) and secondly, against a balanced scorecard as defined by Kaplan and Norton (1996). From these results, we appraise the level of alignment between business and IT by implementing a simple comparison process