Your business has probably come to the point where it’s almost impossible to operate without an effective IT strategy implementation. Why so? Because, in today’s world of technological innovation and advancement, a proper business IT strategy is simply unavoidable for companies. Yours is no exception, so you can’t escape it forever (unless you wanna go old-school). 

 

It becomes a little exhausting to keep up with all the ⏱ progress 24/7. You might even feel confused and energy-drained while trying to build your unique business IT strategy. 

 

While many businesses tend to create winning strategies in other aspects, like marketing, they usually plan on implementing an effective IT strategy when things go really, really bad. 

 

Hopefully, you’re not on that list. However, if you’re facing challenges or struggling to craft the perfect IT strategy for your business, worry no more. It’s not rocket science after all.   

 

 

We’ve built this step-by-step guide for you to break down the IT strategy puzzle into small pieces and make it crystal clear.

 

First of all, let’s pin down one thing: almost every operation you take within your business, whether it’s communication, data gathering, or customer relationship management, ties back to IT. Like it or not, it’s true! 

 

So, let’s get straight into our topic! 🎉

 

 

 

The start-to-finish guide to craft 

your business IT strategy

1.  Outline your company’s strategic goals

Without knowing where your destination is, you can’t get there.

 

Think of these goals as your map for determining where your business is headed, what it can achieve. This also ensures proper business IT strategies for your company.

 

For example, your business strategic goals may include increasing productivity, improving your business’s financial health, or increasing market share. Whatever it is, make sure it’s precisely defined.

 

Some questions to get started with:

 

✔️ What does my business need to improve?
✔️ Where do I want my company to be in terms of sales in 5 years?
✔️ What’s my business’ mission?
✔️ What obstacles can stop me?
✔️ What are my industry trends?

 

 

These basic questions help decide on your business strategic goals. You can definitely add more to the list. Later on, we’ll cover how you can coordinate these goals with your business IT strategy.🪄



2.  Gather info from business stakeholders

If your business is in the start-up phase, you can skip this step for sure. 

 

Otherwise, let’s take a deep look at your already integrated IT systems and infrastructure. The key is to discover all existing inefficiencies, imperfections, and gaps within your current IT systems.

Let us give you a helping hand with some questions:

 

✔️ Are you familiar with your IT ROI?

✔️ What technologies provide your business’ demands?

✔️  Can you use your IT systems more efficiently?

✔️  What changes in the IT sector can help grow your business?

 

These questions vary from business to business. However, they help identify your IT system weaknesses, so you will get a clear picture of needed improvement and further steps. Besides inefficiencies, your IT system also has its demands, unique to your business. Let’s discover those!

3.  Review existing IT systems and infrastructure

Without knowing where your destination is, you can’t get there.

 

Think of these goals as your map for determining where your business is headed, what it can achieve. This also ensures proper business IT strategies for your company.

 

For example, your business strategic goals may include increasing productivity, improving your business’s financial health, or increasing market share. Whatever it is, make sure it’s precisely defined.

Some questions to get started with:

 

✔️ What does my business need to improve?

✔️ Where do I want my company to be in terms of sales in 5 years?

✔️ What’s my business’ mission?

✔️ What obstacles can stop me?

✔️ What are my industry trends?

 

These basic questions help decide on your business strategic goals. You can definitely add more to the list.

 

Later on, we’ll cover how you can coordinate these goals with your business IT strategy.

4.  Define your business IT strategy requirements

Your business should already have a clear vision, mission, and objectives set. Same with your IT architecture strategy. 

 

Regardless of whether you have a precise integrated IT system or you’re a first-timer, you need to define your IT requirements, constantly. 

Start by understanding your long-term IT demands and needs, to later break them down into more detailed, actionable goals. In addition, make sure you have a precise timeline and milestones set. 

 

However, this is an ongoing process, which is a result of not only IT innovations but also your business growth. This way you will ensure your business IT strategy is relevant and effective. 

Now, as we’ve covered what your business needs to do, let’s understand what it can actually do. 

  

5.  Identify the technical capabilities you need

Accelerated information technology growth and the need to meet and exceed customer demands, put your business in the need to constantly be upgrading its technical capabilities. To begin, you first need to understand the exact technical means that will support your business growth.

 

So, during this phase, your task is to thoroughly examine and determine the full potential of your existing technology, while revealing any gaps and insufficiencies. 

 

This step is kind of a sequence of the previous one. As we’ve identified what the IT department needs to provide, it’s time to understand what technical capabilities your business can bring to the table. 

 

The outcome: an effective IT strategy for your business. 

 

6.  Set up your business IT strategy budget

Once a necessity and today a key point, IT cost management has become a must for businesses. 

 

At this point, you should already know what type of essential IT services you need to help grow your business and how to implement them. Now, let’s think about the necessary costs and expenses you will have to make. 

 

First off, define your specific IT and infrastructure costs for a clear representation of whether the existing budget is enough. Some expenses to be inserted include:

✔️ Acquiring equipment

✔️  Maintaining software

✔️ Leasing and licensing

✔️ IT personnel costs, etc.

 

Once you have these set, make sure it goes along well with your overall business strategy, mission, and budget. 

Besides budget, there’s one more calculation to make. 

7.  Decide on your business IT strategy KPIs 

“What gets measured, gets done”. 

 

This is the mindset you need to follow in this phase. All of the steps and processes above won’t bring your desired results if not measured and monitored. 

 

Set your own KPIs (Key Performance Metrics) for developing your business IT strategy to measure its effectiveness. This will allow you to make final decisions, changes, and improvements to align your IT and business strategy together. 

 

Even though your KPIs are very specific to your business and its IT strategy, here’s what you can measure over time:

Some expenses to be inserted include:

 

✔️ Internet proxy performance

✔️ Network availability

✔️ Server growth rate

✔️ Web server availability, etc.

 

So, make sure you have all of the processes, operations, and advancements measured, and let’s get to our final step.

8. Create your IT system management framework

To keep all of this in control, you should build an effective framework for strategic IT management. You might also need some consultation with an IT specialist.

Building up your business IT strategy is a separate task, but taking full control of it will ensure its effectiveness, quality, and manageability. No matter how perfect, your IT strategy needs constant monitoring, evaluation, and maintenance.

We have a mini-guide of how you can create a framework to manage your business IT systems:

 

Set your own KPIs (Key Performance Metrics) for developing your business IT strategy to measure its effectiveness. This will allow you to make final decisions, changes, and improvements to align your IT and business strategy together. 

 

Even though your KPIs are very specific to your business and its IT strategy, here’s what you can measure over time:

 Be specific regarding the processes and rules of your IT management.

Create a framework that allows you to connect the executive, commercial, and operational levels within your business.

 

Your IT management framework should be based on the following 3 elements:

✔️Structure. Who makes the decisions?

✔️Process. How are the decisions made?

✔️Communication. How will the results be monitored within your organization?

 

Your framework must be flexible, easily adaptable, and fit its purpose. 

So, make sure you have all of the processes, operations, and advancements measured, and let’s get 

to our final step.

Conclusion 

Let’s wrap up all the steps for building the right IT strategy for your business. We began by defining our business objectives, determining what IT requirements and capabilities it has, established the main KPIs and a framework for managing this whole process. 

What’s next? Check out who we are and what we can do for your company to help you level up! ☝🏻

 

As a business owner, you have tons of work to do that’s already organized and defined in our guidelines. What else are you struggling with right now? Contact us, and our team will go the extra mile to support your greatest ideas.