Making the case
To maximise the value from your technology you need to be proactive, have a plan, and make conscious decisions. In a nutshell, you must be Strategy Led. Many businesses often have limited resources focused on systems architecture and strategic planning, leading to disjointed technology solutions which have ‘evolved’ organically and reactively rather than by design, and with little in the way of documentation. Technology teams often struggle to stay aligned with business needs, feeling overwhelmed and disconnected.
Businesses evolve and cycle through phases of growth, efficiency drives, re-organisations and modernisation. Through all phases of this cycle, it is critical that there is a technology strategy in place aligning resources and investment to the priority business outcomes. This technology strategy is there to ensure that technology and the teams that manage the technology are an engine of the change required to drive the business, rather than an inhibitor to it. Often companies don’t have a technology strategy, or the technology strategy is an inward facing technology delivery plan, with vague goals or principles that are detached from the day-to-day operations.
What we do
We believe that a strategy should be focused and actionable as well as simple and straightforward to understand. A good technology strategy should contain the following key building blocks:
- Diagnosis – The diagnosis defines the specific goal to be achieved or challenge to be overcome. A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of the situation into a simpler articulation, and focuses in on the critical aspects of the situation.
- Guiding Policies – Guiding policies are the overall approaches that if followed will drive success. They act as guardrails for wider decision making and behaviour, guiding and directing the decision making, and constraining action in specific directions.
- Action Plan – A set of clear actions that dictate how the guiding policy will be carried out. The actions should be coherent, focusing the use of resources and manoeuvres that are undertaken in a coordinated manner.
At Strategy Led we have significant experience in defining simple, clear technology strategies to support organisations, regardless of where in the evolutionary cycle they are.
Growth
During periods of growth it is critical that technology can be adaptable and can keep pace with the changing environment. Growth is often iterative, as organisations test and learn what works and what doesn’t, often rapidly prototyping and changing course frequently in search of the right direction. A good technology strategy needs to address this and ensure that both the technology choices used, and the approach to implementing and managing that technology is suited to this environment. Leveraging modern SAAS services and following Agile delivery methodologies are two examples that can help in this environment.
Efficiency
As companies look to streamline and drive greater efficiencies through their operations, workforce automation is now becoming more and more common. Leveraging AI and Machine Learning to offload computational activities, alongside the use of Process Automation and Robotics technologies to offload repeatable manual task are two key themes of a good technology strategy looking to address efficiency. These kinds of automation are equally valuable for IT processes as they are business. Equally important though is to look across your technology portfolio to see where there is duplication, legacy license arrangements and sprawling infrastructure.
Modernisation
As Customer behaviours change shape, and technology advancements leap forward it is important that an organisations technology strategy keeps track of how these external forces influence the organisation. Advancements in Cloud computing for example come with huge benefits to most organisations yet would likely never be directly requested for by internal business stakeholders. A good technology strategy therefore shouldn’t just react to the internal forces and desires of the organisation, it should bring in context from the wider industry, and technology markets to truly drive value into the organisation.
Want To Learn More?
Our pragmatic approach to technology strategy focuses on creating clear and practical steps and coherent action, rather than woolly goals and slogans. Our free whitepaper outlines this approach in more detail, with real world examples.
