IT Strategy Definition

Nazih Battal, Chief Technology Officer, Rashays

An IT strategy should be one of the first things  a leader in IT establishes. This establishes  the foundation for the following three to  five years and ought to be incorporated into  the broader business strategy, mission, and  vision. 

The following are some crucial outcomes of any IT  strategy: 

Understandable 

All significant stakeholders should be able to read and  comprehend an IT plan with ease. Unjustified language  overuse makes the plan challenging to comprehend and apply,  leading to misinterpretations of its specifics or even crucial  elements. Clarity aids managers in understanding where to  guide their staff. Additionally, the IT leadership may shift,  making it simpler for new management to handle a succinct,  comprehensive approach. 

Aligned With Business 

An IT strategy is about how to use IT solutions to serve future  business demands, not about how to win an innovation race  and cram daily operations with IT gimmicks. IT-business  alignment makes ensuring that systems and apps are used in a  way that helps the organisation gain the upper hand. 

Staged 

A plan can be implemented in stages, giving you more control  and making performance evaluation simpler. Additionally, it  enables the introduction of necessary adjustments with little  discomfort by allowing insight into the nature of implicit and  explicit weak points. 

Cost-Effective 

Without taking the financial aspect into account, strategic  planning is impossible. There are many chances on the market,  therefore it’s important to pick out the ones that are worthinvesting in. This will provide a return  on investment and protect against  unpleasant shocks, such as unforeseen  costs. 

Moderately Future oriented 

Two factors are balanced in a strong  IT strategy: supporting ongoing  operations and planning for the future  (new architecture, new systems, new  technologies). Some corporate and  IT leaders don’t spend enough time  developing long-term strategies and  only concentrate on solving immediate  issues. It prevents potentially  profitable businesses from making  quick decisions and fostering longterm  growth. 

“ Without taking the financial aspect into account, strategic planning is impossible ”

An effective IT strategy goes  beyond simply streamlining internal  business procedures. Additionally,  it helps to create new market  opportunities and increases client  happiness.

Things To Watch Out For 

Even a strategy that can work well  for your company can backfire if you  neglect to take into account a number  of crucial factors. 

Unrealistic Goals 

Even a plan that appears to be effective  may be too difficult and expensive  to adopt. Business executives and  IT managers looking for businesssupporting  IT components are misled  by unrealistic goals. 

Unexpected Difficulties 

Every business will experience changes,  and changes always present difficulties.  Consider a merger and acquisition as  an illustration. Cooperating businesses  must decide which apps to employ in a  joint venture, as well as how to integrate  corporate intranets, databases, and other  IT-related difficulties. It’s also a difficult  undertaking because every business is  accustomed to adhering to its own IT plan,  and it takes time, effort, and expertise to  align various strategies. Underappreciated  obstacles are ticking time bombs that can  blow up your company at any moment. 

Keep in mind that a company  wastes time, money, and human  resources by adopting a poor IT  agenda. It’s a surefire method to lose  ground to other businesses. 

Poor It Strategy 

The failure to organize ideas thoroughly  and succinctly and connect them in a  logical strategy can entirely ruin even the  best analytical work and sophisticated  concepts. 

• Ineffective ideas rather than a wellthought-  out plan. Senior management  making the mistake of thinking that a  disjointed plan is a cohesive strategy is a  severe problem. The collection of plans  first resembles a strategy in many ways.  But a closer examination can reveal that  these schemes conflict with one another. 

• Verbosity. Many out-of-scope  statements and trite language virtually  never help with the development of a  sound strategy. Giving more information  about certain IT concepts and phenomena  makes sense, but providing too many  unnecessary details might make a strategy  awkward and hard to comprehend. 

The sooner you realise this, the  more time you have to rescue some truly  outstanding ideas and proceed with an  effective digital transformation. 

The development and implementation  of a desirable strategy is a particularly  difficult undertaking, even when the  descriptions of good and bad strategies  seem straightforward. Even effective  IT strategies need to be reviewed and  adjusted over time to remain effective in  the market because it is an unpredictably  changing environment with sharp twists.  It’s never too late to acknowledge  mistakes, put a stop to inefficient  behaviour, and make room for new  advantages.