Business alignment is often heralded as a key tenet of successful IT strategies. Popular ways of ensuring IT efforts align with business goals range from co-developing strategic plans with executives on the business side of the company to actively collaborating with business users on projects aimed to derive more value from their efforts. All are sound approaches, but CIOs should dig deeper by pursuing full awareness of what their companies do and what it takes for their companies to succeed. Business awareness is a vital aspect of IT leadership today. It requires knowing how the organization …