IT Strategy

JosephBMurphy

IT Strategies For Business Executives

        IT Strategy       Application Portfolio Management
                   Teambuilding                         IT Rationalization
              Outsourcing Strategies
            Procurement    Business Alignment

IT Aligment Strategies
Aligning the limited resources of IT to the business priorities is a critical factor in the battle for the growth of the business. The business is more and more dependent on the IT organization in the support of the current busness, but more importantly, the business needs IT to help win additional business whether it's with the current customers or new customers. IT staff is your most critical resource when it comes to managing IT.

Getting your current IT costs aligned with future growth areas is the key factor for success. Off loading costs through rationalizing applications and technologies and then by outsourcing can free up costs savings in the realm of 40% and sometimes as high as 60%.

Winning in today's business environment requires a strong IT strategy, IT governance and a working relationship with the business.

Outsourcing Strategies
Outsourcing is not for every company and certainly not for every application, technology or environment. There are certain tradeoffs that if not identified can impact the business. Too many companies believe the quick fix is offshore outsourcing, when in reality, what is needed is a segmentation of the applications, technology and resources, determining the costs and business value and then realign the critical cost components to the business priorities. Outsource applications or other IT components where costs and business improvements can be clearly advantageous.

Wholesale outsourcing can be a mistake due to the disruption to the business and the limited ROI. Building a quick outsourcing strategy and identifying the business priorities requires an IT strategy and plan for execution.

IT Alignment To Business Priorities
Realigning IT resources and costs to the needs of the business requires an on-going IT Governance structure that is simple, flexible and fast. An IT Governance structure is about working with the business units to identify the priorities of the business and the available resources of IT to meet those demands.

Creating an IT Governance structure that works can help business get to market faster, eliminate friction between IT and business, and improve the cost challenges of IT.

IT Rationalization
IT organizations have applications and technolgies that are old and no longer fulfill the strategic needs of the business. Identifying the costs and business value of IT technologies and applications and building an exectuion roadmap to reduce IT costs in the areas that produce little business value can free up budgets upwards to 35 percent. This "new found money" can be poured into new IT projects that deliver more resources to the needs of the business.