ICT Vision and Strategy

Development

Alan McSweeney
Objectives

• Todescribe a view of and approach to developing an

ICT strategy

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Agenda

• IT Vision
• IT Challenges and Trends
• View of IT Strategy
• Approach to Developing IT Strategy

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IT Vision

• A key enabler of business

• Proactively respond to the IT needs of the organisation
• Implement flexible and agile systems and infrastructures and be
flexible and agile in it dealings with the business
• Connected to and aligned with the business and its requirements

Business

Information Technology

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IT - Core Principles

• Recommends that IT define a core set of principles/policies:

− IT strategy will be developed and maintained in line with market analysis
and key stakeholder requirements and IT strategy to be aligned with the
organisation’s vision
− IT delivers core services to cost and quality standards
− IT as a function is controlled and compliant to industry standards
− Security will be embedded in IT
− IT enables flexible service delivery to users
− IT supports business growth
− IT supports and enables compliance in the wider organisation
− IT budgets will be developed and maintained for new services or improved
IT Services

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IT Challenges and Trends
• General challenges and trends in information technology
1. Information Security Management
2. Identity and Access Management
3. Conforming to Assurance and Compliance Standards
4. Privacy Management
5. Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) and Business Continuity Management (BCM)
6. IT Governance
7. Securing and Controlling Information Distribution
8. Mobile and Remote Computing
9. Electronic Archiving and Data Retention
10.Document, Forms, Content and Knowledge Management
11.Training, Competency and Awareness
12.Business Process Improvement, Workflow and Process Exception Alerts
13.Improved Application and Data Integration
14.Web Deployed Applications
15.Enterprise System Management
16.Business Intelligence (BI)
17.Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
18.Information Portals
19.Environmental Concerns
20.Infrastructure Optimisation
• Which ones are of interest to you?
• IT aware of and monitoring key technologies, trends and challenges to ensure that the
organisation will be ready to respond to changes quickly and effectively
− Benchmarking against other industries and competitors
− Developing best practice
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IT Demands
Maximise Return
• Improve business results;
grow revenue and earnings,
cash flow, and reduced
cost of operations
Mitigate Risk
• Ensure security and
continuity
of internal business
operations, while minimising
exposure to external risk
factors
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Increase Agility
• Enable the business
organisation and
operations to adapt to
changing business needs
Improve Performance
• Improve business
operations performance
end-to-end
across the enterprise
• Increase customer and
employee satisfaction
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Balancing Act

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IT Demands

• Internal
stakeholders:
− Business uniits
− IT
• External
stakeholders
− Partners
− Regulators
− Vendors and
suppliers

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IT Strategy

• Develop IT strategy and architecture for the deployment and

implementation, management and operation of IT solutions
throughout the organisation in a cost-effective manner
− Doing things better
− Doing better things
• Process of defining a strategy or direction and making decisions
on allocating resources to pursue this strategy including capital
and people
• Create a blueprint that guides delivery of applications and
information related to an organisation's activities
• The end result is a Strategic IT Plan

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Elements of IT Strategy

• Vision - Defines where the organisation wants to be in the future as it relates to IT

• Mission - Defines where the organisation is going now in IT and describing the purpose
• Situation Analysis - evaluates the current IT situation and how it came about
• Goals, Objectives and Targets - time bound statements of intended future results and
general and continuing statements of intended future results
• Path/Policy Initiatives - maps routes to the goals/objectives
• Stakeholders
− Stakeholders means Ownership means Success
• Measurement Tools and KPI’s
KPI s
− Are we there yet?
• Funding — cost, return on investment
• Implementation — roadmap, plans and handling change
• Governance - security, policies, procedures and risk

• IT strategic plan is a key to obtaining necessary funds

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Benefits of Developing an IT Strategy

• Developa strategic plan that matches business

requirements
• Develop flexible IT architecture to accommodate a
long-term growth plan and a faster response to business
changes
• Evaluate
budget requirements and prioritise IT
development and delivery investment

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IT and Strategy

• Strongly believe that information technology is only a

tool
− To be effective, it must be tightly linked to the underlying
business
• Information Technology Strategy seeks to
− Align the priorities of IT with the priorities of the business
− Ensure that IT is capable of fulfilling its role in the business
− Align the characteristics of IT with those of the business
• Information
Technology has significant leverage on the
performance of an organisation
− An IT Strategy is a sensible and practical management action
to gain control over this increasingly important element of the
organisation
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IT Strategy

• Information Technology Strategy provides benefits to

the organisation
− Supports active management and leadership on the use of IT
to support the business strategy
− Enhances management control over IT resources
− Maximises the value contribution of IT by ensuring
alignment of the IT strategy with the business strategy
• IT strategy addresses two separate but interrelated sets
of issues:
1. Demand issues relate to what the business needs and wants
from IT
2. Supply issues relate to how the IT business area has to
operate in order to satisfy business demand
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IT Controls and Compliance

• IT Controls and Compliance

− IT must implement internal controls around how it operates
− The systems IT delivers to the business and the underlying business
processes these systems actualise must be controlled — these are controls
external to IT
• The de-facto standard for IT governance is COBIT
− Control Objectives
Ob for Information and related Technology
• COBIT aims to be different from other quality and governance
approaches in two ways:
1.It is an IT governance framework and supporting set of tools that IT can use
to bridge the gap between control requirements, technical issues and
business risks
2.It provides a detailed implementation structure and toolset that translates
the framework theory into a practical and achievable deliverables

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Contexts and Perspectives on Change and Impact

• Business-
Business-Oriented Context
− Business Process focuses on the actions, how and in
what sequence activities are carried out, what rules are
followed, and the types of results obtained
− Organisation focuses on the people and organisations
involved in the change: their culture, capabilities,
capacities, roles, structures, and organisational units
− Location focuses on the geographic distribution of
locations where business is conducted and the
characteristics of various location types
• Technology-
Technology-Oriented Context
− Information and Data focuses on business rules, content,
structure, relationships, and the transformation of
information used by processes and applications
− Systems and Applications focuses on the capabilities,
structure, and user interface of software applications and
components
− Technology focuses on the hardware, system software,
and communications infrastructure used to enable and
support systems and services

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Business and IT Strategy
• Business Strategy
− Defines the strategic goals,
imperatives and initiatives to direct
the business
− Business strategy is the principal
driver of IT strategy
− IT strategy is developed to support the
business strategy
− IT can also provide opportunities to
reshape the business strategy

• Organisation IT Strategy
− Defines the strategic direction of
information technology within the
organisation required to support and
achieve business strategy.

• IT Business Function Strategy

− Defines the strategic direction of the
IT function to develop, deploy,
operate, manage and support the IT
systems needed by the business
− Includes processes and supporting
technology

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Information Technology Demand and Supply
• Demand Issues - what the
business needs and wants
from IT
• IT portfolio alignment
• Initiative identification and
business strategy enablement
• IT-enabled business invention
• Demand rationalisation and
prioritisation such as
cost/benefit analyses and risk
assessments
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• Supply Issues - how the IT
function has to operate to
satisfy business demand
• IT mission alignment
• Cost and affordability
constraints
• Organisational positioning
• IT governance and leadership
• Core competencies and
sourcing
• Practical constraints
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Organisational and IT Strategy

• Starting point of IT strategic plan

• IT strategic plan must align with organisational strategy
• ITarchitecture influences organisational strategy (and
vice versa)
• Organisational strategy helps set initial IT strategic
planning priorities

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Business Vision and Strategy

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Business Vision and Strategy

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Business and IT Strategy

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IT Strategy Realisation Issues

• Thestrategy is unrealistic with regard to resources and

investment
• Thestrategy is not consistent with the maturity of the
business
• The strategy is not aligned with the strategic imperatives
of the business
• The strategy contradicts the business culture

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Targeting an Information Technology Strategy

• To understand and support the business

strategy and to contribute to its development

• To define the direction for Information

Technology within the organisation

• To define the direction for the Information

Technology business function within the
overall organisation

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Vision, Strategy, Architecture and Implementation

• Vision defines the overall and high-level set of principles that

will govern the use of ICT within the organisation
• Strategy takes the Vision to the next level of detail
− Contains the set of goals and objectives to realise the Vision
• Architecture translates the Vision and Strategy into an
implementation framework
• Implementation Plan defines the portfolio of projects needed to
implement the agreed Architecture, the sequence in which the
need to be performed, their dependencies and pre-requisites and
implementation requirements
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Vision, Strategy, Architecture and Implementation

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IT Vision

• Designed to meet challenges, both now and in the

future
• Balancing
the need to control costs, provide flexibility,
reduce and manage risk and provide service and
performance
• Develop an integrated IT framework
• Definedand costed a customised programme of work to
achieve vision incrementally

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IT Architecture Framework

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Service Management
• Information is a key strategic asset which the organisation needs
to manage
• IT Service Management is the processes, methods, functions,
roles and activities used to deliver value to the business in the
form of services
• IT Service Management is a strategic asset, rather than an
organisational capability
• Benefits of implementing Service Management
− Provide consistent service to users
− Measure level of service being provided
− Implement processes to ensure reliable IT service
− Enforce consistent management of IT systems and infrastructure
− Improve service reliability, reduce downtime
− Control costs
− Platform for organisation growth
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IT Process and Service Management Framework

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ICT Vision, Strategy and Implementation Plan Work Programme

• Two streams
− Delivery Stream — where the
analysis, strategy, design,
specification, architectural planning
work will be done
− Project Management Stream — where
the project will be managed,
controlled and reported on
• Review milestone at the end of each
of the project stages
− Output from the stage is reviewed
and agreed by designated personnel
• Ensure that the exercise is kept
focussed
− Allows the workplan to be modified
if required
− Ensures that issues are addressed
quickly

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Sample Work Programme - Develop Future ICT Vision and
Strategy

• of::
Scope: The vision of the desired future IT condition consists of
− Set of prioritised IT business uses
− Set of IT business area capabilities and processes sufficient to deliver the high-priority business
uses.
− The IT Strategy consists of the changes to the current supply and demand condition necessary
to realise the vision.
− This definition of the demand and supply portfolios may also suggest updates to the outputs
created in earlier programme activities
• Entry Conditions
− IT best practices have been investigated
− Technology trends have been analysed
− Application, technology, and project portfolios have been analysed for strategic alignment
− Application, technology, and project opportunities have been identified and analysed
− Capability of IT to meet demand has been analysed
• Exit Conditions
− Future has been described in terms of satisfied business demands (applications, data,
technology) and IT capabilities and processes
− All relevant IT environments and processes have been considered

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 Approach

• Business requirements drive strategy and architecture

• Capturing business requirements is essential
• Define key principles/policies/critical success factors for
IT
Business

Functional
Requirements Strategy Architecture Implementation
Technical

Implementation

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ICT Vision and Strategy Deliverables

• Enterprise Architecture and Information and Communication

Vision, Strategy — translate the Strategic Aims and Strategic
Objectives contained in the organisation’s Strategic Plan into an
ICT oriented vision and strategy
• ICT Strategy Architecture — translate the ICT Vision and Strategy
into a physical architecture and associated sub-projects,
initiatives and changes that will realise the overall strategy
− Suitable technologies will be identified
− Business cases for each project, initiative and change.
• IT Architecture Implementation Plans — overall implementation
plan for the entire project and implementation plans for each
constituent sub-project, initiative and change
− Project resources, dependencies and pre-requisites.
• Project Management and Delivery Documentation — material
generated during the life of the project
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Project Phasing

High
Deliverable 2
Deliverable 1

Business
Value
Deliverable 3

Deliverable 4

Low

Low Feasibility High

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Strategy Realisation Programme

• Identify project
sequencing and
dependencies

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Business Case Justification

• Scope Definition and Agreement - Scope and requirements

of the engagement are confirmed. The required outputs are
agreed
• Requirements Analysis, Definition and Agreement -
Business, functional, technical and implementation
requirements are identified, analysed and documented
− Existing processes and systems impacted by the proposed
investment are analysed
• Solution Architecture Specification and Design - Logical
solution is designed to meet the defined and agreed
requirements
• Solution Implementation Options and Selection - Options
for implementing the solution — package acquisition and
customisation, existing system upgrade, system
development — are analysed
− Options or options are recommended
• Implementation Plan Roadmap - A realistic plan to
implement the solution is creating, incorporating resource
requirements and constraints and includes risk,
assumptions and dependencies
• Financial Analysis - The full costs to implement and
operate the solution are quantified
− Tangible savings are identified
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Business Case Preparation

Strategic Fit Options Evaluation and Procurement and Whole-

Whole-Life Costs Plan for Achievement
Identification Implementation
Business need and its Cost/benefit analysis of Proposed sourcing Statement of available Plan for achieving the
contribution to the realistic options for option with reasons funding and details of desired outcome with
organisation's business meeting the business projected whole-life key milestones and
strategy need Key features of cost of project dependencies
proposed commercial (acquisition and
Key benefits to be Statement of possible arrangements operation), including all Contingency plans
realised soft benefits that cannot relevant costs
be quantified in Procurement Risks identified and
Critical success factors financial terms approach/strategy with Expected financial mitigation plan
and how they will be supporting details benefits
measured. Identify preferred External supplier plans
option and any trade-
offs Resources, skills and
experience required

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Key Messages

• IT strategic plan is a key to obtaining necessary funds -

worthwhile investment
• IT strategic plan is an enabler of doing things better and doing
better things
• Strategy development exercises can be short and cost-effective
engagements — low cost, high-value
• Take a practical focussed, realistic, sensible, down-to-earth
approach
• Develop realistic IT strategies
• IT strategy can unblock IT spending plans
• IT strategy is applicable across all business areas

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More Information

Alan McSweeney
alan@alanmcsweeney.com

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