IT strategies are often nonexistent or ineffective, and IT departments that have not developed these strategies experience alignment, organization, and prioritization issues. According to Info-Tech’s Management and Governance Diagnostic (n=19310), 74.6% of organizations have an IT strategy process that they feel is ineffective.
Furthermore, IT departments can be ineffective in communicating their support for business goals. The firm’s CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic (n=863) shows that 23.6% of CXOs still feel that their goals are unsupported by IT.
Info-Tech advises that CEOs value tech leaders with experience in fostering operational stability and strategic business alignment. However, an IT leader can also often be seen as an order taker by business executives, resulting in demands on IT that far outstrip the IT budget.
Info-Tech’s blueprint details some of the issues facing IT departments with an ineffective or absent IT strategy. Issues include:
- Projects and initiatives are not prioritized around business objectives.
- Synergies and dependencies are recognized too late.
- Projects are often late or put on hold because of sudden changes to business requirements.
The firm recommends IT leaders adopt an industry-focused approach to discern the business context. This includes clearly communicating how IT will support the organization’s key objectives, and then prioritizing projects in a holistic manner that allows for the selection of the most valuable initiatives to become part of the IT strategic roadmap.
This approach, outlined in Info-Tech’s new blueprint, will allow IT departments to:
- Establish the scope of an IT strategy by defining IT’s mission and vision statements and guiding principles.
- Perform a retrospective of IT’s performance to recognize the current state while highlighting important strategic elements to address going forward.
- Elicit the business context and identify strategic initiatives that are most important to the organization while building a plan to execute on it.
- Evaluate the foundational elements of IT’s operational strategy that will be required to successfully execute on key initiatives.
- Wrap all strategic information into a highly visual and compelling presentation that enables easy customization and executive-facing content.
View and download the complete Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy blueprint.
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About Info-Tech Research Group
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory firm, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals. The company produces unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. Info-Tech partners closely with IT teams to provide them with everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
SOURCE Info-Tech Research Group
