Technology Strategy

Information Technology (IT) Strategy

Technology is ever more important to business success and therefore must be considered when looking at optimising your business performance – yet technology is ever more complex to get to grips with. Whether it is using technology for social networking, customer relationship management, financial management or for marketing and sales the message is clear, thorough planning, excellent project management and end user consultation are all essential factors in rolling out new technology in your business.

The first step in reviewing what technology is doing for your business, or what it might do with a bit of development work, is to decide on what your IT Strategy is.

Sharpen your technology pencil just by talking to a qualified specialist with wide experience in evaluating and implementing technology solutions in small and medium sized businesses.

A Technology Strategy (as in Information Technology) is a plan that explains how information technology will be utilized as part of an organization’s overall business strategy. Like all business strategies it should focus on how to build value in the company. It may propose an incremental change or it may be based on innovation and transformation of the business.

The same principles that apply to creating any business strategy work for your IT strategy – see the Performance Planning Cycle  and Ten Tips for Business Planning.

Workshops, participation and engagement of key stakeholders, including those who will be implementing the strategy and using the technology, is an important part of the strategy development process.

The following questioins can be asked in a series of workshops:

• Where are we now?
• How can we improve?
• Where do we want to be?
• What do we need to change to get to where we want to be?

In holding workshops good facilitation is essential and organisations often find that an external, impartial facilitator gets better results than someone from within the organisation.

The contents of a strategy

The strategy is likely to include the following elements:

• Executive Summary – a short overview of the main elements (single page)
• Aims and objectives – what you want to do and why?
• High-level organizational benefits – what do you expect to gain from the strategy?
• Links to the business strategy – how does the IT strategy support the main business?
• Risks and risk management – summary of the key risks to successful implementation and how you will manage them:
• Assessment of the external environment – opportunities and threats
• Assessment of organisational capabilities – strengths and weaknesses 
• Finances – summary of the costs / investment implications and how you will manage them
• Staffing – overview of staffing and management requirements and arrangements

Implementation action plan or road-map

No strategy is worth creating unless it is accompanied by an implementation action plan or road map including:

• Programme and/or project management arrangements
• Key milestones (see Business Planning Tip 4: SMART targets)
• Budgets and financial plan
• Progress monitoring arrangements or methods for measuring success – how will you know whether the strategy is working?