Professional Documents
Culture Documents
0:
Making IT
Relevant to the
Business Again
The Evolution
of IT Strategy
2 thinkwgroup.com IT Strategy 3.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Again i COPYRIGHT © 2018 WGroup
IT 1.0
IT Strategy 3.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Again i COPYRIGHT © 2018 WGroup thinkwgroup.com 3
IT 2.0
The second era of IT (and the current era for many traditional
companies) grew from these early successes in leveraging
information technology. However, the value associated with
automation and personal productivity began to be taken for
granted. Companies accepted that they needed an IT
organization to manage these expensive investments, but sought
to do so at the lowest cost.
4 thinkwgroup.com IT Strategy 3.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Again i COPYRIGHT © 2018 WGroup
IT 3.0
IT Strategy 3.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Again i COPYRIGHT © 2018 WGroup thinkwgroup.com 5
At a minimum, shadow IT initiatives are decentralized and fail
to capture economies of scale across the enterprise. These
initiatives tend to be poorly integrated both across business units
IT 3.0 and with central IT data repositories and systems, which can often
lead to redundant and inconsistent information. Shadow IT
initiatives can also expose vulnerabilities in data security and lead
to increased business risk. Finally, shadow IT initiatives tend to be
vendor-driven and can be designed in ways that are financially
advantageous to those vendors and result in high switching costs
and significant vendor lock-in. In fact, most business leaders would
welcome a knowledgeable and efficient IT organization taking over
responsibility for IT 3.0 initiatives but doubt their ability to support.
6 thinkwgroup.com
A New Approach
to IT Strategy
To capitalize on the potential of IT 3.0, WGroup recommends
the following five-step approach to IT strategy development:
IT Strategy 3.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Again i COPYRIGHT © 2018 WGroup thinkwgroup.com 7
Re-engage
the Business
Checklist
8 thinkwgroup.com IT Strategy 3.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Again i COPYRIGHT © 2018 WGroup
Target
Technology-
driven Business
Differentiation
IT Strategy 3.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Again i COPYRIGHT © 2018 WGroup thinkwgroup.com 9
Target
Technology-
Checklist
driven
Business
• Identify the business capabilities necessary to
Differentiation execute the business strategy
• Evaluate whether current IT initiatives are supporting
said business capabilities
• Identify where new technology and applications
can support those business capabilities
10 thinkwgroup.com
Identify
Necessary IT
Organizational
Competencies
IT Strategy 3.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Again i COPYRIGHT © 2018 WGroup thinkwgroup.com 11
Identify Consider strengthening the part of your IT organization responsible
for maintaining your relationship with the business (we sometimes
Necessary IT refer to this as the “business enablement” function). It is often
Organizational useful to dedicate a senior IT leader with strong business acumen
to serve as the liaison or business relationship manager between
Competencies IT and each major business unit or function. This will ensure the
sustainability of your IT Strategy 3.0 approach.
Checklist
12 thinkwgroup.com
Price,
Prioritize
and Plan
IT Strategy 3.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Again i COPYRIGHT © 2018 WGroup thinkwgroup.com 13
Price, The key here is to focus and prioritize. And that includes
Prioritize identifying what not to do. After all, strategy is about focusing
your resources. You can’t do everything, even if you have
and Plan seemingly unlimited funding. And you don’t want to set yourself
up for failure with a plan so aggressive that you find yourself off
track in three months.
Checklist
14 thinkwgroup.com
Validate the
IT Strategy with
the Business
Once you have your IT strategy, seek out the sponsors and
business leaders that you engaged at the beginning. Show them
what you’re doing and get their support.
Checklist
IT Strategy 3.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Again i COPYRIGHT © 2018 WGroup thinkwgroup.com 15
Keeping the IT
Strategy Relevant
in the Long Term
16 thinkwgroup.com
Make IT Strategy
Your Competitive
Advantage
Visit us at thinkwgroup.com
or give us a call at (610) 854-2700
to speak with one of our IT strategy
experts.
About WGroup
WGroup is a management consulting
firm witha peer-to-peer approach to IT
optimizationand transformation. The team
is composed of consultants with over two
decades’ experience as former C-suite
executives and IT leaders. The firm boasts
a clientele that includes many Fortune
1000 companies across a wide range
of industries. WGroup is known for an
outcome-driven, service provider-agnostic
approach that optimizes IT operations and
minimizes costs.
OPTIMIZE IT
thinkwgroup.com
TEL: (610) 854-2700