An IT strategy is is simply a long-term, detailed set of documents that encompass the company’s vision and strategic planning for Information Technology.

This would include budgeting, strategy documents, and operating models for the future state of the company’s technology architecture. You need to be sure that the strategic planning process includes representatives from every department, and ideally should be led by your chief information officer (vCIO).

The Benefits of a Well-Designed IT Strategy

Creating an IT strategy is an organization-wide effort and it’s well worth the investment. Here’s why:

1. It provides a combined approach to processing and sharing information across the company so you can increase efficiency, minimize duplicate work, improve collaboration, and minimize errors.
2. It helps in data collection, processing, governance, and analytics. Many new technologies, such as those using AI and big data for business intelligence, require a large amount of reliable data to produce accurate insights.
3. It allows for an integrated and global approach to cybersecurity so you can effectively protect customer and employee data. This is particularly important if you’re in a regulated industry and need to stay compliant with security standards.
4. It helps improve IT resilience that’ll minimize the high costs associated with extended downtime.
5. It allows your IT department to take a passionate role in resource allocation and project planning so decisions can be made to prioritize long-term benefits.
6. It helps improve communication between IT and different departmental leaders to achieve better executive alignment and stakeholder buy-in for IT initiatives.

How to Create an Effective IT Strategy For Your Business

An IT strategy provides a framework that guides the implementation of technology solutions. Here are some essential steps in designing an effective IT strategy:

• Position your IT goals with your Business Objectives

An effective IT strategy should address overall business goals and needs. 

The first step is therefore to understand the business objectives of each department and the entire organization, e.g., sales target, growth plan, marketing goals, new partnership opportunities, demand forecast, logistics, etc. to ensure a holistic approach that will meet the needs of all business divisions.

• Consult with IT firms to gather information

In order to design a forward-thinking IT strategy that addresses not only your current technological requirements but also supports the organization’s future growth, you need to understand and analyze key trends in the industry.

You can do so by defining and communicating with various IT firms that can help you in understanding the use of IT in various aspects of the business.

• Determine your IT Requirements and Scopes

The next step is to define the requirements and timespan of your IT strategy and make sure that it addresses the objectives of each business unit and the entire organization.

While the focus of this strategy is on long-term vision and goals, you should build in key phrases and schedule in milestones so it’s periodically reviewed and validated to ensure its effectiveness and relevance.

• Review Current Efficiency and Infrastructure

After defining the IT requirements, you need to take stock of the available infrastructure so you can identify any gap in the current capabilities and see how you can best achieve your objectives with as few disruptions and in the most cost-efficient way possible.

Don’t forget to take into account the “human factor,” such as how employees are actually using the current technologies, the challenges each department encounters, how each software or tool integrates into the “big picture,” and the results the current systems are achieving.

• Define Overall Architecture

Now that you have a solid understanding of where you’re at and where you need to go, it’s time to figure out how to get there by mapping out the IT architecture, which includes software, hardware, other tools and resources you’ll need.

The overall architecture should consider department-specific technologies (e.g., to stay compliant with regulation) and how they integrate into the larger company-wide system.

• Set Key Performance Indicators(KPI)

There’s a saying, “what gets measured gets done.” To make sure your IT strategy is taking your business where it needs to go, define a set of KPIs (key performance metrics) so you can measure its effectiveness.

Depending on the nature and focus of each component, there will be different key metrics. E.g., measurement of agility, project delivery time, customer and employee satisfaction, marketing and sales ROI, capacity utilization, service-level indicators (e.g., the number of help desk calls,), etc.

•  Identify the Right Resources

While most companies already have an IT team, it’s typically tasked with the day-to-day maintenance of the IT systems. Resources are often stretched when the team has to tackle additional IT projects.

It’s important to review your project plan and make sure you have sufficient personnel with the right expertise to support both new IT initiatives and ongoing operations.

Your IT team is a valuable resource and has the institutional knowledge to lead your IT strategy. However, at critical stages of designing and implementing such a strategy, your team will need additional support, either on fine-tuning your IT strategy or off-loading the day-to-day operation so they can focus on the high-level objectives and initiatives.

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