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, 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.

2. 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’s future plans.
• Evaluating how effective previous strategies were compared to the spend plan. Collect, analyze, and use your data to guide decisions for the next phase of strategy.