Technology strategy
Our technology strategy service focuses on building a clearly defined strategy and roadmap for technology in an organization. Our intellectual capital helps visualize the problem and then supports making the best decisions on how to transform technology capabilities. From innovation strategies to architecture designs, from technology market assessments to portfolio analysis, we help our clients solve hard technology strategy problems.
- The Problem
It may be a cliché, but the technology world really is changing faster and faster each year. The last five years have seen revolutions in mobility, analytics, the internet as a platform, connection with suppliers, customers and markets, and the list goes on and on. And, while we are hesitant to repeat the cliché, the next five years will see an even faster rate of change.
At the same time, many businesses and their technology organizations have been forced to buckle down and focus only on urgent operational issues due to constraints on budgets and time during the financial crisis and its slow recovery. Some organizations haven’t had the bandwidth to take on strategic projects in several years.
This means that many businesses are not capitalizing on the emerging strategic options made possible by new technologies. It puts the business at risk as competitors exploit new technologies to leap frog existing organizations. But how do you “do strategy?“ How do you think clearly about the opportunities offered by the technology? How do you ensure strategic thinking has a real impact and doesn’t just sit on a shelf in someone’s office? Our approach focuses on moving quickly toward specific initiatives, each with tangible benefits.
- The Approach
Businesses need a visible technology game plan. We start by clarifying technology’s past and potential role in achieving the business’s strategic objectives, not just the individual fixes or solutions that would help address issues or opportunities in the short term, but the directional changes needed to move the technology architecture and the supporting organization to where it needs to be. We meet with business executives via interviews or facilitated workshops to explore their current pains and future plans. We present emerging trends and technologies to these executives to get their perspectives and thoughts about how they will change their markets.
Some of our clients already have plans in motion. Some are starting with a blank slate. Either way, we work with our clients to step back, review what we heard and work collaboratively with them to refine their strategic vision. We apply a flexible set of intellectual capital to provide our clients the specific set of actionable recommendations they’re searching for.
Our “4 Things” framework helps our clients quickly clarify the problems the organization is facing as well as opportunities they may not have seen before. It allows us to visually represent the issues concisely for communication and action across the organization.
It’s never the same. All clients are in a different situation and facing different realities, with different priorities. The common characteristic is they want to be more effective and want to maximize the value of technology investments. While every project is different, generally at the end our project, we deliver the following:
• Current state of technology applications and infrastructure, with key issues and gaps to address
• View of the organization structure and its delivery model, with recommended improvements
• Definition or clarification of the project portfolio in the context of the technology vision
• Actionable short term plan and long term roadmap, with timelines to communicate within the technology group and to business stakeholders
• Scorecard to measure ongoing progress
We then work with stakeholders to set the plan in motion, with clear structures and processes to track progress and to adapt as business needs change.