Defining IT parameters

When talking to business leaders about their IT and e-commerce strategies, I sometimes wonder why they are pursuing a certain direction. IT and more so e-commerce (with all it promises) are too often removed from the business strategy planning process and rather "hooked on" the future scenario. This causes the advantages that IT/e-commerce delivers to be reactive in nature rather than integrated into the strategic process to create some kind of competitive advantage.

You should have a clear picture in your head - if not communicated to your team - of where you want your business to go.

One possible reason for this is that most business executives are usually above the IT strata in the hierarchy as it were and therefore do not have much appreciation for the subject. As a result, they avoid bringing yet another unknown variable into their already complicated business strategy process. Another view is that some executives deem strategy to be "too academic" or difficult to implement. They therefore don`t waste any time creating strategies that few understand and yet fewer care to implement.

The problem is that so much is being published regarding e-commerce and the successes (as they are viewed despite the enormous bottom-line losses) of technology-fronted businesses, that these poor business executive just have to concede that there must be more to all this than pure "hype". And then when the IT manager or director constantly gets on their case about new technology, investments, upgrades, integrated systems, management information needs, etc nobody can ignore them or wish them away.

This leads to current situations where the IT manager or director is left to develop "IT strategy" and make recommendations as to what should or should not be implemented. The fascinating side of this approach is that most recommendations tend to lead with the argument - "an investment in this technology", without the balance of the rationale - "the return on investment will be". This leaves the business executives with an incomplete value proposition that is often not aligned to the strategic business objectives. Sadly most of these "IT strategies" are based on an "I think we should have some kind of a Web presence" or "I think we should be using this technology" opinion without any real supporting evidence of value-add.

The world-class best practice in this regard is to integrate your business and IT strategy process. Why? Because the one has the potential to impact on the other to such an enormous scale that you could miss the ball totally if you separate the two. This statement is, of course, based upon the assumption that you do have a strategic planning process with some kind of recognisable output (in the form of a plan or document). A further assumption is that this output is implemented and taken seriously by the business. The next assumption is that you have a facilitator who understands business and technology sufficiently to recognise where the two meet in your business and the extent to which they can create a differentiator or competitive advantage for you - or, at worst, help you to keep up with your competitors.

You should have a clear picture in your head - if not communicated to your team - of where you want your business to go. If not, stop reading this article now and go and create one! After all, as the saying goes, if you aim at nothing, you will achieve nothing. Next, you need to work out a plan of how to get from where you are now to where you want to be. BUT, don`t do it alone: get your team together (including your IT people) and let them help you work out a plan. You should get some help facilitating this process; if you try to do it yourself, you may find you could have done it alone anyway since often your views (as a senior executive) would usually be imposed on your team as opposed to getting objective input from all sides - including outside.

A good facilitator should be able to supply some overview of the latest trends in technology (including e-commerce) relative to your industry and or business. This could be accomplished via subject experts or research summaries. The facilitator should have an approach or methodology that you could preview and, if necessary, customise to suit your needs. Preparation prior to workshops or any interventions is critical and you may find that your current "business strategy" may change direction a few times during the course of establishing a new "technology-enabled/integrated" strategy.

Lastly, if you cannot define the value, return on investment or business benefit, then don`t apply the technology or change - no matter how "strategic" it may seem.