Think Beyond IT Strategy

There is hardly any organisation which does not have an IT strategy. Usually this is prepared every year before the budgeting session to identify the opportunities of investments. There is also a common theme which comes across all the strategies – which includes the latest industry jargon such as Green IT, BYOD, cloud, Big Data, and MDM, etc… I wonder how all organisations have similar IT strategies when the business is different.

Sometimes my views could be radical and/or explosive. I convey my unconditional apologies in advance for something which I might put forward with the intent to give a different perspective which might even mean going against popular sentiments. I find many a times so-called IT strategies are list of initiatives by IT leaders which have been given a timeline over a period. Many of these are linked to buzzwords generated by consulting companies and product vendors who have managed to mesmerise the IT Chiefs to spend money. So sometimes I wonder, whose strategy is it? Or is it merely personal aspirations of individual career development which have been captured in the form of IT strategy or linked to some latest hobby? A lot of money gets spent without business value and giving a perception and debate about ROI from IT investments.

IT Strategy Inseparable From Business Strategy

Wikipedia defines strategy as “undetailed plan of action, encompassing a long period of time to achieve a complicated goal”. Tactics are tools to implement a strategy and subordinate to the main goal of strategy. The IT strategy cannot exist in isolation to business strategy. The question that comes to our mind then is what is business goal? Can IT have a different goal post? Most often business will find it hard to define its own strategy or even if they have, they may have in isolation and it becomes hard for them to articulate it so that it is communicated across. As a result, a vacuum which gets created, which is filled by IT and then it takes shape based on popular initiatives of the industry. This could be the reason why many IT strategies will look similar.

In my view, we should not stress on IT strategy much. Rather, force business to articulate the strategy and IT should adopt tactics to implement that strategy. The reason why I am saying this is because it is today hard to adopt a long term business strategy as this is the wave of agility where we are constantly challenged by changes happening around us. It is hard for business to predict and visualise what might happen few years down the line. Having a long term strategy will lock our investments and by the time we are ready scenario might change.

Rather than strategy, we should look at the core values and purpose of the organisations which they are built with. If the organisation wants to become the most innovative player in the market, that is where the energy should be spent. If the organisation wants to become number one in customer service, the technology should make it happen with or without Big Data or MDM. This links organisation purpose to IT initiatives and could be consumed well by business.

In a typical organisation, the following diagram depicts the way how the IT should approach its strategy:

We should not have IT projects but business projects. Typically we should not make the mistakes of owning of business initiatives in IT as it can cause disaster for the IT Chief. Initiatives should be owned by business with a clear sponsor and IT should have its projects/initiatives aligned to business projects. I often see the mistakes happen here as business sees its own initiatives as “IT initiatives” and disengagement happens. From the strategy perspective, the investment has to be made and owned by business and ideally IT should have investments on acquiring more capability to ensure these plans are driven. It should also support business growth in terms of capability enhancements for keeping the lights on.

As far as business investments are concerned, the investment should be against the “Themes” of business. Business themes can be initiatives like “improve market share” which may have business programmes to make it happen. This can last for several years as well. Programmes will then have projects which can have IT as well business projects. The entire portfolio of investments should be managed properly at times by using PPM practice which helps a lot in optimising investments. And maybe investing in PPM with clear ROI goals could be good IT strategy in itself!

In conclusion, we should think beyond strategy and look at business goals as our main purpose. In organisations, we should have one business strategy and rest others (all functions) should work along with this business strategy. Sometimes helping the business to have a process of driving a strategy or come out with a business plan could be the best IT strategy. As they say “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”