One of the most powerful resources available to organizations is information technology (IT). While most executives recognize their responsibility to ensure that all of the organization’s business processes provide optimal value to the organization, they may find it difficult to ensure that the IT infrastructure is aligned with the organization’s strategic goals. Without this alignment, IT resources may not be used effectively and may not fully contribute to the organization’s business goals. To ensure that an organization’s IT strategy is aligned to the business objectives, one has to understand the business objectives, the legacy systems, and new technologies.

In this project, you will complete an audit of the technology and information systems processes in your organization. Focus on hardware, software, networks, databases, security, and people. You will decide the extent to which business functions are being facilitated by the present information technology infrastructure. In particular, you will assess how well the current IT infrastructure can accommodate your organization’s business strategy.

Conduct this IT audit for your own organization if you can. Depending on the size of your organization and your access to information, auditing your entire organization may be impractical. As an alternative to using your own organization, you can choose a nonprofit organization, an educational institution, a previous employer, or another organization with which you are familiar. Consult your instructor for approval of your choice.

This project will use templates in Microsoft Excel to walk you through steps to evaluate your information systems strategy, to assess gaps in your current system implementation and security, and to recommend emerging technologies to assist your organization in its business objectives.