Seeking Business-IT Alignment: The Case for a Cloud-based CRM at Easy English
Product Number：
EN_2020XXXTYDZSW_6312
Page Views：
631
CaseName：
Seeking Business-IT Alignment: The Case for a Cloud-based CRM at Easy English
Authors：
Li Liang,Mao Jiye,Zhang Wei,Li Zhi
Author Affiliation：
Renmin University of China
Enterprise/Organization：
Easy English
Industry：
Information Technology
Discipline：
Information Technology & E-commerce
Scale：
SMEs
Language：
English
Type of Case：
Decision Case
KeyWords：
business-IT alignment; cloud computing; Software-as-a-Service (SaaS); customer relationship management (CRM), teaching case
Abstract：
Easy English (EE) is a small business founded in 2006 in Beijing, China that provides personalized English training for children and youth aged 3-16. The company’s leadership realized the strategic importance of information technologies (IT) to support and drive the company’s success. In 2009 they deployed a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and kept co-evolving the system and its business toward effective business-IT alignment, which helps the company to grow steadily during the last a few years despite that the competition in this industry intensifies greatly.
This case highlights the importance of achieving business-IT alignment for companies, especially growing small businesses, to benefit from IT. It also illustrates the business implications of cloud computing, an emerging disruptive IT in 2009. It is intended for use in upper-level undergraduate or graduate IS courses such as Introduction to IS, IT strategy, and IT governance, as well as in courses on managing small businesses. It can be used in conjunction with articles on business-IT alignment (e.g. Henderson and Venkatraman, 1999), dynamic capabilities (e.g. Teece, 2007), or cloud computing (e.g. Iyer and Henderson, 2010) to provide the students with a better understanding of the related theories and/or the technology.
Intended Audience：
Undergraduate,Graduate,MBA
Data Source：
Primary
Publication Date：
2012
Revision Date：
2020
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