IT is reshaping the entire world. Organizations are using technology for building products. They are using technology for providing these services to their clients. Organizations that are using a robust IT framework can benefit from improved productivity and increased agility.

If you are starting your digital transformation strategy, then you should develop an efficient and secure IT strategy first. However, this isn’t a simple process for corporations, the public sector, and startups. Thus, companies are generally looking for MSPs who can help them in implementing these technologies. This IT approach will help you in creating new IT capabilities. It will ensure that your business is keeping up with the advancement.

What is IT strategy?

IT strategy is a document that will describe your organization’s mission and vision regarding IT initiatives. This strategy is very important for your business. It will help you in creating IT capability. Your company can achieve business goals, create value, provide support, and improve internal processes by creating an IT strategy.

IT will touch every aspect of your business. Every department needs IT for functioning properly. You should focus on developing a solid digital strategy.

Your IT strategic planning process should consider automation, process optimization, and sustainability. Make sure that you are describing the responsibilities and roles to your employees. This will ensure that your employees understand their roles and responsibilities.

IT strategy is a framework for business leaders and managers to make business decisions that will help you in driving the implementation of new IT solutions. These new IT solutions will help you in supporting your IT strategy. Your IT plan is not going to be a static document. It is going to change and evolve with time. Continuous evolution simply means that you need to build a scalable IT strategy. This will help you in overcoming potential hurdles. It will ensure that you are coping with the increased workflow.

Your IT strategy will help you in highlighting all the steps that you need to take for achieving your business goals. If you are creating an IT strategy, then you should be ready for some initial resistance.

Make sure that you are including a representative from each department in the planning phase. This will ensure that every department has a say in the planning phase. You can ask your CIO or a vCIO to take the initiative.

Benefits of IT strategy

There are various benefits of creating an IT strategy. Your IT strategy will help you in documenting various things like vendors, network redundancies, equipment warranties, software licenses, and hardware replacement schedules. It will also help you in identifying the important technology. Some of the most important benefits of having an IT strategy are:

Identify Risk

Every business needs to deal with some risks. An IT strategy will help you in finding risks in your network and infrastructure. This will ensure that you can improve your network. There might be old servers or faulty backups that can affect your business. Your IT strategy will help you in identifying and eliminating these risks.

Increase security

An IT strategy will also help you in improving your IT security posture. It will help you in assessing your current IT infrastructure. This will ensure you understand your current IT environment. You can focus on minimizing any potential threats. Your IT team can add a new antivirus or firewall for improving your security. You can also provide IT security training to your employees. This will ensure that your employees are following the best IT security practices. All these things can be addressed in your IT strategy.

Planning budget

Your IT strategy will help you in identifying the technologies that are at risk. You will also know about the hardware and software that you need to change. All this will help you in creating an IT budget for your business. Important IT infrastructure like servers will be expensive. Thus, you should budget for them in advance. This will ensure that you know about all the costs which will be associated with your IT plan. If you have an IT strategy, then you can easily account for all the devices that you want to buy.

Increased Up-time

Your business will be paralyzed if your IT systems are not working. If your network is down, then your employees can’t do their work. Thus, it is important to ensure that your network is always running.

An IT strategy will help you in identifying your most important systems. It will help you in determining mission-critical data and plans that you need to backup. This will ensure that in case of an attack you can restore your network.

Data backup strategy will help you in quickly increasing your up-time. You should ensure that you are backing up the right data. Also, you should ensure that you have enough redundant systems in place. In case of a disaster, you can use these systems for doing your work.

You can also store your data and applications in the cloud. This will ensure that your data will be always available. Make sure that you have a redundant internet connection. This will ensure that you can operate even in case of an internet outage.

How do you develop an IT strategy?

We are going to share some points that you should keep in mind when you are creating your own IT strategy.

Align with your business goals

You should start with your business goals. They are the perfect place to start. First, you should understand the current state of your organization. You should understand all the trends that impact your business. These are the things that you want to achieve in the long and short term.

Make sure that you are keeping the end goal in mind. After that, you should engage with your managers, CIO, and CEO. Try to involve every department manager. You should also consider growth plans, demand forecasts, sales targets, and logistics. This will help you in formulating a perfect IT strategy for your business.

First, you should understand your organization’s objective. This will help you in determining if the current operating processes, architecture, and available skills can help you. The main goal is to align the organization’s objectives and aims with your IT capabilities.

Engage Stakeholders

You should ensure that you are involving your stakeholders in creating a robust IT strategy. This is important as you need to understand everyone’s specific needs. Your different teams will have different needs. You should also understand the IT needs of your business.

Your external and internal stakeholders should be involved in this process. This approach will help you in setting up a framework for all your IT decisions.

If you are involving everyone in the planning, then they will be receptive to change. Your staff members will feel a sense of ownership. Thus, they will help you in implementing your IT strategy. This will also ensure that you can improve your IT strategic plan.

Track your future trends

Technology is always going to evolve with time. Thus, you should figure out the things that you need in the future. This is not an easy task. You should focus on becoming more flexible and agile to adapt to the latest trends. Also, you should embrace change.

You should focus on creating a robust IT strategy. This can be only done if you have clearly defined your business goals. In this case, you should understand different trends that can affect your business. There are certain trends that can impact the customer experience, efficiency, and growth of your business. If you are getting this part right, then you can beat your competition.

Define your requirements and scope

You should ensure that you have clearly defined your scope and requirements. This is very important for your digital transformation. Make sure that you are addressing the goals of every department that is present in your organization.

You can develop various key phrases which will help you in addressing your goals and visions. It is a good idea to use it as a benchmark. Make sure that you are validating your strategy for its effectiveness.

Check your existing IT infrastructure

You should audit your IT infrastructure once you have defined your scope and requirements. Make sure that you have a list of all the available software and hardware. You should also dive into the IT architecture that you are using. This will help you in checking if there are gaps in your current IT infrastructure.

You should ensure that your existing IT infrastructure can achieve your business goals. Try to find the most effective solution for meeting your objectives. You should also consider if your staff is comfortable with existing applications. Your staff might be looking for some other features or applications. Also, you should ensure that your employees have the required skills to use new technologies.

Map your IT architecture

You should also create a map of your overall architecture. This will ensure that you know about the things that are present in your network. Make sure that you know about all the applications, software, and hardware that are present in your network. This will help you in achieving your goals.

The overall architecture should consider department-specific applications and technologies. You should also consider the applications that your departments are using. Also, make sure that all these applications can be integrated into your enterprise ecosystem.

Set up your IT operating model

You also need an IT operating model for ensuring that you can convert your strategy into an operational plan. It will provide a clear guide to your leadership and IT team that you can follow. Your IT operating model will help you in bridging the gap between your on-paper strategy and actions.

Your IT operating model will have a huge impact on your vendors, partners, employees, and customers. This will provide context to the strategy and vision that you are trying to achieve and implement. It should cover the entire lifecycle of your IT strategy, IT infrastructure support, and architecture.

You should ensure that you are including the following elements in your model:

Governance: You should describe the key procedures and roles in ensuring that the information can flow from the business to IT.
Processes: This will include all the processes that you need to support enterprise architecture. It will include your business requirement, IT support, and applications.
Sourcing: You also need to decide on the external vendors and partners who will be working with you. This will include software and hardware manufacturers. Also, you should include your IT service providers in this list. An IT operational model isn’t a static document. You should ensure that your IT operational model is changing according to your business needs. Your IT operating model should change with your IT strategy. The main aim of this model is to empower all your departments through IT.
Organizational Structure: This represents all the important IT functions that you can organize.

Conclusion

You can follow these tips for implementing a good IT strategy for your business. This will ensure that you can actually keep up with the digital transformation. Digital transformation is very important for your business. Your IT strategy can help you in transforming your business. Thus, you should be serious about it. It will help you in supporting your staff members. At the same time, it will help you in achieving your business goals.

MSPs will be a big part of your IT strategy. Experienced MSPs like Bleuwire can help you in reducing your IT workload. They will help you in managing your IT systems. Thus, you don’t need to worry about managing your IT systems. Bleuwire will also help you in regularly monitoring your network. In case of a breach, they will help you in recovering your data and systems. This will ensure that your IT department will have less work pressure. They can focus on doing important tasks like improving your products and services. If you need more information regarding IT services, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™ services and solutions in how we can help your business.