Welcome to the ‘IT Strategy Matters’ newsletter. I’m delighted that you are on this journey with me.
This is the second ‘IT Strategy Matters’ newsletter. I’m aiming to share my thoughts in this newsletter monthly for now but will increase the frequency as the time that I can dedicate to this business increases. This newsletter has already been sent to existing subscribers and I'm sending this to you a few days after your last email so that you can catch up with what I have been sharing with others.
I’ve been busy starting to create the structure and content of my first online courses. I’ve been thinking about what strategy really is and how IT leaders, IT professionals and business leaders should develop and leverage it. I’ve also been reflecting on the role of the IT leader, how this has changed and what it means to be an IT leader in today’s organisations.
I came across a piece of research from Deloitte where they had surveyed 211 US-based CIOs and technology leaders to understand their priorities and how their interactions with their businesses are changing.
The headline was that the role of the CIO is expanding from technical guru to business leader. I think that this has change has been happening for some time:
Traditionally IT strategy was subservient to business strategy. The business strategy came first and set the direction for the company, and the IT strategy was there to support the needs of the business and the users. This often went hand in hand with it reporting into finance and being considered a cost centre for the business, where cost was to be minimised rather than value due delivered.
Over the last 15 to 20 years, this attitude has changed. For a long time, it was seen as a leading enabler of the business, still subservient to business strategy. But often informing the way that the business should move and the way that it should develop its offering and services. IT directors and CIOs were now more. Likely to have a board seat of their own. Ought to report into a more commercial or operational function than finance.
Now with technology developing so fast and with technologies such as AI really redefining the way that we do business, it is starting to lead the business strategy rather than be entirely subservient to it. The CIO is now sometimes responsible for defining the product that the company offers for defining the type of market that they could address and how they go about that, as well as supporting the needs of the users to do their job and the company to run its processes and operations.
The Deloitte survey found that:
- Shaping, aligning, and delivering a unified tech strategy and vision is the biggest priority for CIOs surveyed this year (46%)
- The role of the CIO is being elevated with nearly two-thirds (63%) of technology leaders saying they report directly to the CEO
- Those surveyed said that CIOs in 2024 need to exhibit a range of tech and business traits, including enabling transformation and innovation (59%), delivering topline value (57%), and serving as change agents (54%)
It’s therefore more important now than ever that IT leaders, but also all IT professionals and business leaders have a good grasp of how to develop and deliver those IT strategies that will drive revenue growth and change their organisations for the better.
Deloitte reported that when asked to rank the defining characteristics of a leading CIO, respondents were split between the conventional (those viewed by themselves and others as running IT) and contemporary (those embracing the opportunity and reinventing the CIO role). I think that the reality is that the answer for each characteristic is neither one nor the other, but both:
How can you choose between these two options? You may see yourself as being more one way than the other. You may take risks in some areas, but mitigate them in others, but I don’t believe that a CIO who was wholly a risk-taker would not get very far.
The reality is that IT leaders and their IT strategies still need to deliver all the conventional benefits like mitigating risk, driving cost efficiencies and leading technology, but also values and benefits that are more recently part of the role such as being a business leader, driving change and taking risks with technology to drive revenue growth.
Quite a tough job! But as we all know, an interesting and fulfilling one. But how do you go about building and delivering an IT strategy which can success against these diverse aims?
It’s important to consider the fundamental components of the strategy and for it to answer some fundamental questions. These are:
- Who?
- What?
- When?
- Why?
The context to these questions varies depending on the phase that you are in of developing or delivering the strategy, but I believe that if you keep these four questions at the front of your mind, and ensure that you are always answering them, you will both develop and deliver a valuable strategy which supports both traditional and contemporary values and business drivers.
Think about it. When explaining strategy, we talk about vision, plan, roadmap, goal etc. And we create artefacts like documented user and business needs, business cases, project plans, stakeholder communication plans etc. These are all some combination of ‘who?’, ‘what?’, ‘when?’ and ‘why?’ in a context that is relevant to the phase of development or delivery of the strategy.
When we are hypothesising, the ‘who?’ could be the user needs. When delivering it might be the project team or a stakeholder communications plan. Why might be the goal that we are trying to achieve, or the business case which explains the tangible return on investment to the business. I think that there are many interpretations but only a few fundamental questions and by focusing on those questions, we will develop and deliver rich and valuable strategies.
What are your thoughts? Do you think that there is something fundamentally missing from this model? Have you seen success with a similar approach? Please get in touch to let me know.
I set up The IT Strategy Coach because I believe that there is a different way to develop IT strategy and I believe that this approach can be of great benefit to both your organisation and to you. I’d love for us to create a movement together where we all share our experience and a common aim to develop and deliver valuable IT strategies.
Thank you for your help, support and companionship.
Dan – The IT Strategy Coach
Read the results of the Deloitte survey for yourself:
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