Tuesday, September 7, 2010

IT Strategy

I just wrapped up an IT Strategy assessment for a local company here. The interesting thing for me with these kinds of engagements is the ability to learn about a new division, a new business etc. The typical process for completing an IT Strategy is simple on paper.
1. Understand the goals and objectives of the company - why are they interested in an IT Strategy now, what do they want to achieve?
2. Understand the current processes of the department(s)
3. Understand how they use technology today
4. Figure out how they can apply technology to improve their processes so that it fits in with #1 above

At a high level, that is it..However,the trick is to be able to:
1. Interview the stakeholders effectively in order to capture their processes. This is not necessarily easy
2. Have a broad, but deep understanding of current technologies, and how they can be leveraged. This means you will have to be comfortable talking about off the shelf products, custom solutions, CRM, ERP, hardware and infrastructure etc. Industry experience really comes in handy here..
3. Being able to tie the output of step 1 and the knowledge about step 2, in order to help the company with an actionable plan to realize the suggestions. How much to spend and when to spend it, and why are the key points here.
4. Get buy-in!! Understand the players, their motivations and influence and get their buy-in. Most important step.

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