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Introduction.
Technology is fundamental to the success of almost every Business sector you can think of. As technology continues to evolve, it’s essential to ensure that your business is using the right technology to keep it competitive and profitable for years to come.
Introducing an IT Strategy Roadmap into your Business is one way of achieving this.
What is an IT Strategy Roadmap?
An IT Strategy Roadmap (also sometimes referred to as a Technology Roadmap) is a document that presents a visual plan of the IT systems and technologies that will be implemented into your organisation over a period of time. The plan defines your Business goals and the technology milestones that need to be reached in order to achieve these goals.
Organisations with a large IT Infrastructure will often find it beneficial to implement two separate strategy roadmaps – one for systems and another for technologies.
Consider this.
An IT Strategy Roadmap presents the perfect opportunity for your Organisation to evaluate its existing IT Infrastructure and determine if you have the right Systems and Services in place to support your Business challenges, goals, processes and initiatives over the coming years.
Who benefits?
Business owners, key decision makers, financial controllers and obviously IT Managers will all greatly benefit from introducing an IT Strategy Roadmap because it will align your IT Strategy with your Business Goals and your annual IT Budget.
Not all Roadmaps are created equal.
Most actions (milestones) on an IT Strategy Roadmap are segregated by dates of completion and by priority, but this information can be presented in different ways. For example, the actions included in our IT Strategy Roadmap are also separated into five different strategies: Capability, Availability, Continuity, Security and Capacity.
8 essential reasons to introduce an IT Strategy Roadmap.
- It delivers measurable benefits
- It will ensure a maximum return on your IT investment by eliminating unnecessary IT expense
- It allows you to identify opportunities for greater return on your current and future IT spend
- It will align your IT Infrastructure with your Business requirements
- It ensures your Cybersecurity preparedness
- It provides a greater insight into your IT Infrastructure
- It helps you to pass audits more quickly and easily
- It provides a quicker road to recovery in the event of a disaster
An IT Strategy Roadmap isn’t just for large Organisations.
It is a common misconception that IT Roadmaps are only for Large enterprises with equally large IT infrastructures, but this simply isn’t the case. We’ve helped many Small Businesses to greatly improve their IT operations and get the most from their capital expenditure by introducing an IT Roadmap that is bespoke to their Business challenges and goals.
Look.
Introducing an IT Roadmap doesn’t have to be expensive. We will take this opportunity to point out that all Ohso Technical customers receive an IT Strategy Roadmap implementation service as part of their Fully Managed IT Services agreement, at no extra charge!
How is an IT Strategy Roadmap prepared?
Obviously not all IT Support Consultants will follow the same process, but here’s a basic overview of 3-stages that can be used to create a successful IT Strategy Roadmap:
Stage 1 – Discovery.
Conduct a discovery meeting with the key decision makers and senior managers within the Organisation in order to discover the clients Business challenges and determine their Business goals and objectives. Ask the client to outline any new Business initiatives and confirm their annual IT Budget and projected IT budget beyond 12 months.
From here, you can ascertain what technology the client requires to meet their Business goals and objectives moving forward.
Stage 2 – Development.
Create an IT Strategy plan using the information gathered during the discovery stage. This plan is then used to create a visual IT Strategy Roadmap that contains detailed information for implementing new/upgrading existing IT capabilities that will help you meet your Business Challenges moving forward.
Stage 3 – Review and Management.
The proposed IT Strategy Roadmap is reviewed by the key decision makers and project managers within the Business. The client has to agree with the proposed schedule of works outlined in the IT Roadmap, in addition to agreeing on a budget before the works outlined in the Roadmap can commence. Once all parties agree to proceed with the roadmap, a quarterly review will be scheduled so that everyone is kept up to date with progress reports.
An effective IT Strategy plan is the foundation for a successful Roadmap.
An IT Strategy plan will typically contain a list of concerns about the existing IT Infrastructure and any existing gaps in IT. It will include details of the Business impact associated with these concerns and gaps. The IT Strategy plan will also contain details of the IT Strategy that will be implemented as a resolution, its priority, when it is due to be actioned and the estimated cost.
All of this information is used to create a visual IT Strategy Roadmap.
