On October 7, the 16th Workshop on Business and IT Alignment (BITA) took place within the context of the BIR 2026 conference in Olten, Switzerland. A contemporary challenge for enterprises is to keep up with the pace of changing business demands imposed on them in different ways. Today, there is a clear demand for continuous improvement and alignment within enterprises, but unfortunately, many organizations lack the appropriate instruments (methods, tools, patterns, best practices, etc.) to achieve this. Recent developments in organizational use of artificial intelligence and digital transformation have introduced new dimensions to BITA, making it an important topic in relation to smart products and smart business ecosystems. A persistent challenge with BITA is moving beyond a narrow focus on a single tradition or technology. There is a need to address multiple dimensions of the enterprise to create alignment between business and IT. Examples of such dimensions are organizational structures, strategies, architectures, business models, work practices, processes, and IS/IT structures. IT governance is also a dimension that traditionally has had a strong impact on BITA.
The BITA workshop aimed to bring together people interested in BITA. We invited researchers and practitioners from industry and academia to submit original results of their completed or ongoing projects, and we also encouraged a broad understanding of possible approaches and solutions for BITA. As organizational practices of business and IT alignment are also relevant for the research community, we also called for the submissions of case studies and experience papers.
The workshop received 16 submissions. Two submissions were desk-rejected, 14 were reviewed by at least three PC members, and after the review process, six of these submissions were accepted for the workshop. On average more than 20 participants attended the BITA workshop in Olten and contributed to a lively discussion of the papers and related topics.
Further information on the BITA 2026 workshop: https://www.wirtschaftsinformatik.uni-rostock.de/forschung/veranstaltungen/selbst-organisierte-workshops/bita-2026/
Further information on BIR 2026: https://www.bir2026.fhnw.ch/
The conference proceedings for BITA will be published as post-proceedings at: https://ceur-ws.org/