Technology has never been so fundamental, so strategic and so important as it is in the digital age. It is being used to create new business models, products, and services, enhance existing offerings, and create deeper, more rewarding customer experiences, and as such, businesses need to develop the right technology and IT strategy for success.
Technology strategy (information technology strategy or IT strategy) is the overall plan that consists of objective(s), principles, and tactics relating to usage of the technologies within a particular organization. Such strategies primarily focus on the technologies themselves and in some cases the people who directly manage those technologies. The strategy can be implied from the organization’s behaviors toward technology decisions and may be written down in a document.
In other words, technology strategy is the task of building, maintaining, and exploiting a company’s technological assets.
To compete in the new world of dynamic and disrupted digital markets, organizations need to be able to operate at the speed of digital; they need to be able to respond quickly and easily to changing market conditions, customer preferences or competitor activity.
The traditional approach to developing a new technology strategy involves a fairly structured, sequential process that produces a long-term view of the organization’s technology requirements together with a plan for meeting these needs. The main steps of the classic approach are:
The agile approach to technology strategy is based on many of the same activities as the classic approach, but with some key differences that take into account the need for speed and flexibility.
Typical steps include:
In cases where technology is used as the starting point for a new business model or to create completely new products or services, the business strategy will itself be based on technology. There is an argument that, in such instances, there is no need for a separate technology strategy, as the technology initiatives, investments and priorities are an integral part of the business strategy. And the CIO and the IT function will be key players in the definition of that strategy.
As with the agile approach, the no strategy case is also dependent on the IT function developing and maintaining key architectural artifacts to support the business strategy, and to shape and guide technology decisions.
For a strategy to be effective, it should answer questions of how to create value, deliver value, and capture value:
In short, whether it’s a pure IT business or IT-dependent business, tech strategy plays a key role in handcrafting the org’s future. It’s high time to craft your firm’s strategy if you don’t have one, using any of the methods.
Hari Vignesh Jayapalan is a Google Certified Android app developer, IDF Certified UI & UX Professional, street magician, fitness freak, technology enthusiast, and wannabe entrepreneur. He can be found on Twitter @HariofSpades.
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