Month: January 2020

Are you still doing IT Strategy the old way?

Technology leaders *say* they want to innovate. However, when our consultants examine their company’s IT strategies, there are usually two obstacles blocking the way toward moving their organization into the future.

Technology leaders say they want to innovate. However, when our consultants examine their company’s IT strategies, two major obstacles block the path toward moving their organization into the future.

  1. First – Where’s the innovation?
    There are a few red flags that show new plans don’t contain the ground-breaking strategy clients claim to want.

What’s missing?

  • Technology: There aren’t any new technology solutions identified.
  • Resources: Conceiving, identifying, and implementing inventive strategy requires investment and buy-in from the company.
  • Inspiration sources: Developing innovative solutions is impossible if the leaders are not drawing from external confluences.
  • Budget: Researching and testing new solutions requires its own line item.
  1. Second – “We’ve always done it this way.”
    True innovation requires deviating from what “used to work” as well as developing a holistic, data-rich strategy.What went wrong?
  • Nostalgia: Basing strategic plans on current and past plans and information instead of looking to the future.
  • Silos: Making decisions without pre-vetting with other organization departments. Big decisions affect the entire organization: it’s easy to miss a crucial detail that may not be in your vertical.
  • No Data: Lacking tools, processes, and personnel to capture, track and facilitate the strategy’s effectiveness through data.
  • A budget is not a plan: Without true innovation, strategy becomes nothing more than an IT spend plan.

Balance the innovative elements of your 2020/2021 IT strategy (and beyond!) with tried and true best practices you’ve learned in the past. These standards include:

  • Researching the technology market for industry-specific trends and advances.
  • Getting buy-in and clearly defined business requirements from other business units ahead of time. It’s essential to collaborate with coworkers and departments who will be impacted by the IT strategy in order to ensure alignment with the business’ future plans.
  • Evaluating how effective previous strategies were compared to spend plan. Collect, analyze, and use your data to guide decisions for the next phase of strategy.

 

CIOs: don’t get trapped in the Matrix

It’s imperative for technology leaders to stay one step ahead of any potential trouble. A great way to ensure you’re receiving up to date, strategic advice is to enlist a trusted consultant to assist in developing plans and procedures that will mitigate or eliminate risks.

CIOs juggle day-to-day responsibilities and developing strategy while staying alert for IT weaknesses that threaten to negatively affect their company. Nothing spells a CIO’s demise like being unprepared to mitigate unexpected tech failures.  Corporate tech stumbles, be it a security breach, application outage, or a failed disaster recovery, can easily end up as an article in The Wall Street Journal.

It’s imperative for technology leaders to stay one step ahead of any potential trouble. A great way to ensure you’re receiving up to date, strategic advice is to enlist a trusted consultant to assist in developing plans and procedures that will mitigate or eliminate risks.

A large gap exists between identifying the need for a professional consultant and receiving the funds to hire assistance due to multiple factors.  You might run into negative responses for a number of reasons:

  • Budget problems: no funds are budgeted for security proofing.
  • Business-oriented decision-makers fail to thoroughly analyze the risks involved when operating under lax security protocols.
  • Decision-makers are unwilling to invest in security measures.
  • Political tension and competition exists between departments—every vertical has funding needs and struggles to maintain budgeting priority.

Avoiding the urge to concede to other business priorities or downplay the importance of IT investments is a challenging task that every IT leader must undertake.

Quality data will guide strategic decision making and make your case for an increased budget. Evaluate the results of previous priorities in relation to the spending plan and use this information to defend and build on your organization’s IT strategic priorities.