As a business owner in today’s tech-driven world, having an effective IT strategy isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s essential for survival and growth. But in the rapidly evolving landscape of technology, fine-tuning your IT strategy can often feel like shooting at a moving target.
The Nexus Between IT and Business Objectives
If you want to harness the full potential of your IT strategy, you have to start with the right approach. This means not operating in a vacuum. Instead, create a strategy that facilitates and amplifies your broader business goals.
Before any IT strategy is put together, you have to understand what the larger goals are for the organization. This includes both short-term aspirations and long-term goals. For example, are you trying to 10x your revenue over the next decade? Or is your primary goal to build your brand and create satisfied customers over the short term?
Once you have a clear understanding of your business objectives, the next step is to identify how IT can support these goals. For example, if improving customer satisfaction is a priority, an IT initiative could involve implementing a new customer relationship management (CRM) system or improving website functionality to enhance the customer experience.
To successfully build a bridge between your IT objectives and larger business goals, there has to be effective communication. IT must be included in all strategic decisions and have a seat at the table any time broader goals are being discussed. Likewise, there’s an onus on IT to clearly communicate its initiatives to other departments using language that non-IT folks can actually understand.
Tactical Ways to Improve
Improving your IT strategy takes time. However, don’t let that cause you to delay. The faster you move, the easier it is to begin experiencing results in the short term. Let’s explore a few tactical suggestions to get you moving.
- Adopt the Latest Technologies
It’s not enough to add a few tools or systems here and there. In a rapidly evolving landscape, you must leverage the latest technologies to gain the competitive advantage you’re looking for. How do you do this? While the execution isn’t always easy, the process is simple.
- Stay informed: Continually stay abreast of what’s happening in the market. Whether big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, or IoT, the more informed you are, the more relevant you’ll be.
- Know your business: You can’t take a big swing at every new technology just because others are. Know your business and which technologies are actually relevant to your business model and goals. You have to be selective.
- Prioritize integration: After identifying promising technologies, you have to integrate them into your existing IT infrastructure with as little friction as possible. Sometimes this requires IT consultations and pilot implementations.
- Cultivate the Best IT Talent
Technology is only half the battle. You also need people to run the technology and execute your IT strategy. This starts with hiring the right people.
One of your core values should be constant and never-ending improvement through continuous learning. In other words, make sure your people are prioritizing getting better daily.
Regularly assess the skills within your team and identify any gaps. Once these gaps are identified, you can provide targeted training or consider hiring new talent to fill them.
- Proactively Reduce Downtime
Every minute of downtime can have a significant impact on your business, from lost revenue to a damaged reputation. With that in mind, taking steps to reduce downtime should be a key component of your IT strategy.
Having reliable hardware and software is a fundamental step toward reducing downtime. This could mean investing in high-quality equipment, choosing reliable vendors, and ensuring your software is up-to-date and regularly maintained.
You’ll also want to implement redundancy, which involves having backup systems or components that can be used if the primary ones fail. This could be as simple as having an extra server on hand, or as complex as setting up a failover system that automatically switches to a backup system in case of a failure.
Regularly Review and Revise Your Strategy
An IT strategy isn’t something you set once and then forget about until three to five years down the road. It’s something that requires constant analysis and tweaking. For this reason, we recommend having someone permanently in charge of reviewing and revising your IT strategy. This person should also hold monthly meetings to keep everyone in the company abreast of what’s happening.
