New digital technologies have completely changed the way people live their lives, how businesses run, and what customers and clients expect from companies.
To be successful in today’s day and age, your organization must stay ahead of the curve when it comes to IT strategies. There are all too many once-successful businesses that have failed purely because they did not put enough time, effort, and financial investments into developing and adapting their digital technology.
An effective IT strategy can help your business maximize the return on its IT investments and create shareholder value.
Taking the time to even consider a new IT strategy is the first step to success, but these changes cannot be made overnight and you should have a clear, solid understanding of what makes a great IT strategy before you alter your existing one.
Before you go ahead and overhaul your company’s IT strategy ask yourself:
How can I Avoid a Vague IT Strategy?
A clear and robust strategy is necessary if you are looking to achieve optimal results — a vague IT strategy is almost as unhelpful as having no strategy at all. Additionally, if you do not carefully clarify your strategy, it is easy for your team to misinterpret your company’s goals, which will stop them from working and behaving optimally.
Clear directions and precise goals are the keys to a strong foundation for any organization — an effective IT strategy has the same principles. Be clear in how the IT strategy can help support your business as an IT strategy and your core company values should be intrinsically linked and unable to diverge from one another.
To make sure you are creating a coherent and proactive IT strategy do both an internal and external analysis as you would for your corporate strategy. This will make sure you have considered all the elements that affect your company’s IT investments and will help you set relevant goals.
Do I have the Right Team?
You already know that your employees and team are the foundation for your organization’s success —this does not change when implementing an IT strategy. Your team may all be experts in their field and the best in their particular role, but are they IT strategy experts?
The perfect IT strategy team is experienced, skilled, and dedicated to information technology If you are unsue that your team possesses these qualities in regards to IT strategies, there is no need for concern as outsourcing an IT strategy team is a very common and effective option. Outsourcing a team of IT strategy experts will make sure that you have the best knowledge and tools at your disposal. however, it is still important that you choose a team that aligns with your company values and goals and has an exemplary track record of success.
Even if you do choose to outsource your IT strategy, it is still important to choose members of your team to develop effective frameworks and monitor the strategy’s success. Being focused on prioritizing your IT strategy and making sure the team dedicated to its implementation has enough time to do so will make a world of difference.
How can I optimize the cost of my IT strategy?
Optimizing your costs should already be at the forefront of your mind, but many people fall into the trap of believing that cost optimization is a one-off or annual exercise. During the process of creating and implementing a new strategy, make sure that the optimization of costs is an ongoing task.
Leveraging Cloud services is one of the most popular and uncomplicated ways of optimizing the cost of your IT strategy. Using the Cloud makes it easy to collaborate virtually and allows for upward and downward scalability. Effectively using these services is not only cost-optimal but also makes many practices simpler.
Some other effective approaches to IT strategy cost optimization include:
- Implement shared-services.
- Increase IT financial transparency.
- Implement a program to measure, analyze, and predict your business performance.
- Consider investing in Mode 2 capabilities.
- Repeat the measurement and analysis process of your cost optimization strategies to stay as informed as possible.
Does that Initiative Actively Help my Company Achieve its Goals?
This consideration is more manageable if your business has avoided vague strategies. Wavestone (Previously known as WGroup, a top business advisory firm that operates in the US) mentioned that every investment and project decision made by your company should be geared towards empowering your IT strategy objectives and achieving its goals. If you have created a precise, robust IT strategy, it should be easy to differentiate between initiatives that help meet your goals and initiatives that disconnect from your strategy.
When offered an investment or project opportunity assess whether it lines up with your IT strategy. Any opportunity that does not contribute to your IT goals is, usually, not worth pursuing.
It is also worth considering whether the projects you are already involved with are beneficial to your new IT strategy. If you are unsure of some of the projects that you are currently running, it may be beneficial for you to reconsider their value.
In Conclusion:
As an IT leader, IT strategy planning is one of the most important aspects for your consideration. Investing time, effort, and finance into creating an effective IT strategy in-house or outsourcing a high-quality IT strategy company should be one of your main priorities.
When creating or assessing your IT strategies make sure you are asking the right questions throughout the process. If executed properly, an IT strategy can be the driving force behind growing both your investment returns and your business as a whole.
