✅ Technology and strategy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐

The Strategy-Technology Connection

The past decade reveals managers’ growing awareness of the need to incorporate technological issues within strategic decision making. They have increasingly discovered that technology and strategy are inseparable. For technology has an inner logic that simply must be considered in a company’s strategic planning—that process of creating a concept of the business it is in, identifying its goals and objectives and the long-term policies to meet them, and formulating plans of action. Technology—more than just nuts and bolts—includes the elaborate systems of planning and production through which a company’s abstract capability is translated into the goods and services on which it ultimately depends for success. More than 30 books and articles referenced by the author express this increasing perception by managers of the need to place technological decisions in the context of overall corporate strategy.

Some ten years ago Donald R. Schoen ably summarized for HBR readers the best thinking on several closely related topics: the relationship of technology to organizational structure, the apparatus of technological forecasting, and the characteristics of the innovative process.

In retrospect, his most telling observations may have been those which, in passing, revealed the straitened condition of the literature.

Of specialized writing in the various functional areas he found no shortage. But of material on the “total process by which companies translate a technological advance, an idea, or an invention into products, processes, or services” he found very little.¹

Until recently, the situation had only marginally improved. A Niagara of published research inundated such topics as R&D management in individual research laboratories, reward systems for R&D personnel, and techniques of R&D project evaluation. But the prospect for material relating technological considerations to the strategic concerns of business long remained Saharan.

Why? Three explanations suggest themselves:

1. Researchers in specialized fields could not agree about the kinds of more general questions to examine or the contexts in which to examine them.

2. Lacking a sense of common purpose, they naturally tended to restrict their work to the data most familiar and most amenable to their particular expertise.

3. The sheer pace and scope of developments required a degree of technological knowledge rarely found in tandem with a keen appreciation of the concerns of business.

The type of individual, the common purpose, and the disciplined knowledge on which any true business-oriented research on technology must rest—all these have been slow to appear. Even today no universal agreement exists about which data are relevant or which techniques of analysis are appropriate, although the area of disagreement has narrowed.

But, at last, the right kind of individual is in place and at work: the researcher who is equally at home with technical detail and entrepreneurial point of view.

Granted all this, why should HBR readers—even those in moderate-or high-technology companies—be interested in the evolving shape and thrust of a body of research literature? Why should they care that disciplined knowledge has slowly begun to appear in the fashion I am about to describe?

The course of research in any given field is both an agenda for still unanswered questions and a reflection of how experience has so far yielded to understanding. It synthesizes scattered practice and insight and raises both to the level of conscious, systematic endeavor much as an aerial photograph distinguishes significant patterns in what from ground level appears unalleviated chaos.

Hence the shape of the past decade’s technological literature is important to researchers and managers alike for what it indirectly says about their cumulative day-to-day experience. It charts their complex, growing awareness of what they need to know to do their jobs: the need to grasp as fully as possible the strategic implications of a company’s technology.

A Strategy-Oriented Literature

A critical link between technology and strategy exists; the only real choice is whether managers want to see it.

Four distinctive tendencies separate this recent research from earlier work:

1. The willingness to cross older functional boundaries in the search for analytic concepts elegant enough to make sense out of progressively sophisticated data.

2. The keeping of primary interpretive focus on the ways in which the key decisions of business affect or are affected by variations in technology and not on those variations themselves.

3. The conception of technology as including not merely a company’s products and the skill necessary to make them but also the elaborate systems of planning and production through which abstract capability is turned into salable goods and services.

4. The view of technology as a central part of business thinking at all levels and not as a kind of alien phenomenon to be held at arm’s length by all but R&D engineers.

These tendencies have jointly underscored the still valuable observation of Donald A. Schon, author of Technology and Change: “We have accepted technological change…as an instrument…[as] what established institutions do in order to achieve stable social objectives. We use it to do what we wish to do, and we remain the same throughout.

“But, as we are learning, technological innovation belongs to us less than we belong to it. It has demands and effects of its own on the nature and structure of corporations, industries, government-industry relations, and the values and norms that make up our idea of ourselves and of progress. We do not remain the same throughout.”²

Indeed, the past decade’s experience has shown beyond a doubt that the products and processes of technology have a logic—an inner dynamic—of their own that must be respected in business thinking. They are not neutral counters to be moved about the competitive checkerboard by managerial fiat.

Technology bears an integral relation to a company’s strategic thinking by helping to define the range of its possibilities. At the same time, it provides a good portion of the means by which strategy, once decided on, is to be carried into effect.

Though all this may seem common sense, it is the hard-won conclusion of much long, laborious research. Pause a moment to review just how this consensus emerged and how an awareness of technology came to influence the way managers think about strategy.

Economic Pointers

Recent findings by economists point the way for seeing technology in strategic terms.

Several economics-based studies of innovation pointed early and vigorously to the importance of this awareness. Of special interest are the results of project SAPPHO as reported and analyzed by Christopher Freeman.

SAPPHO, a multiyear research project at the University of Sussex, sought to understand the differential success of a number of paired attempts (one successful, one not) at similar kinds of industrial innovation. “By ‘pairing’ attempted innovations,” Freeman notes, “it was hoped to discriminate between the respective characteristics of failure and success.”³

What did the results show? Of some 200 measurements used to define key differences between the halves of each innovative pair, most failed to demonstrate the predictive value expected of them. Relative success or failure was not meaningfully associated with the organization of R&D departments or project teams, the techniques of R&D project evaluation, or the incentives offered R&D personnel.

Nor, for that matter, was either associated with such factors as patent priority, academic qualifications of personnel, representation of engineers or scientists on corporate boards, adherence to target dates, or even length of developmental lead time.

The measurements that did discriminate between success and failure were few: the size of the project team (that is, the concentration of effort), the caliber of specialized communications with the external scientific community, the status and seniority of the managers in charge of the innovation, and—most of all—the attention given along the way to coupling the development of technology with the needs of the marketplace.

Freeman puts the case succinctly: “Successful attempts [at innovation] were distinguished frequently from failure by greater attention to the education of users, to publicity, to market forecasting and selling…and to the understanding of user requirements.”⁴

Other British researchers working along the same lines have come to a similar conclusion: “Perhaps the highest level generalization that it is safe to make about technological innovation is that it must involve synthesis of some kind of [market] need with some kind of technical possibility.”⁵

This contention is, in turn, supported by the extensive work of Edwin Mansfield on the economics of innovation. Commenting on the risk involved in R&D, Mansfield argues at length that “a great deal of the risk…stems from potential difficulties faced by a new product or process in the marketplace, not from the purely technical uncertainties.

“Moreover, these results…make one wonder whether better coordination between marketing and R&D people could not reduce the large percentage of technically successful projects that are commercial failures…[and] whether the percentage could be reduced by better coordination—and incentives for pursuing policies benefiting the entire firm, not just particular departments.”⁶

In short, innovative success appears to be a function of good communications, purposeful allocation of resources, top-level support within the organization, and careful matching of technology with the market. If these factors have a salient common denominator, it is that they are all key elements in defining and implementing corporate strategy.

The lessons of innovation, then, address Schoen’s explicit interest, mentioned at the outset, in the “total process” by which technology is incorporated within the general concerns of business. They suggest at least one way for managers to begin to think about technology in strategic terms.

Manufacturing Considerations

It is sheer foolishness for managers to leave the technological dimension of manufacturing operations out of their strategic thinking.

Additional suggestions emerge in part from Wickham Skinner’s work on the “top down” strategic management of the manufacturing function.⁷ Two recent articles by Robert H. Hayes and Steven C. Wheelwright are good cases in point. Moving beyond the long-familiar preoccupation with purely technical detail and short-term cost reduction, they place manufacturing considerations in broad strategic context by recognizing that “just as the product and market pass through a series of major stages, so does the production process used in the manufacture of that product.”⁸

Hayes and Wheelwright find that this dual sequence constitutes a product-process matrix—a two-dimensional grid that charts a critical, if often neglected, aspect of the strategic positioning of business units. Knowing where a given productive unit is or ought to be positioned on the matrix can help managers:

1. Define more precisely the nature of their business, the operational grounds for its claim to a distinctive competence, the inevitable trade-offs between product efficiency and innovative flexibility, and the best logic on which to organize its various manufacturing tasks.

2. Assess an externally wrought dislocation in structure or strategy, that common but poorly understood “loss of focus” which often accompanies a breakdown in organizational consistency.

3. Plan for orderly growth over the long term.

This matrix builds on the substantial revision of manufacturing doctrine primarily carried out by William J. Abernathy and James M. Utterback. Individually and in collaboration, they are responsible for a string of complementary publications, the most inclusive of which are Utterback’s “Management of Technology” and Abernathy’s The Productivity Dilemma.

Between them, they demonstrate with compelling detail a new simple truth: “Operations management and management of technological innovation and change are inextricably linked.” More than that, operations and technology, properly understood, are inextricably linked to the full range of strategy-related considerations.⁹

In their joint formulation, the evolution of process technology toward the high degree of productivity made possible by learning-curve economies of scale has a mutually reinforcing effect on product evolution. Change in one tends to produce a “consistent pattern of change” in the other; each evolves in symbiotic response to the other as well as to external competitive pressures.

Consequently, it is a grave error to treat them merely as independent, though closely related, phenomena. Instead, “a product line and its associated production process [ought to] be taken together as the unit of analysis”—that is, together they constitute a “productive unit.”¹⁰

Earlier research centered either on specific instances of product or process innovation or on industrywide developments. By contrast, this “productive unit” orientation directs attention toward the regularities, the consistently predictable patterns, in technological change. The Exhibit, reproduced from Abernathy’s The Productivity Dilemma, summarizes these patterns.

Exhibit Productive Unit Characteristics Source: William J. Abernathy, The Productivity Dilemma: Roadblock to Innovation in the Automobile Industry (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), p. 148. Copyright © 1978 by William J. Abernathy.

As manufacturing processes become more efficient and as overall product variety decreases in favor of a single dominant design, a number of other developments follow:

• The nature of technological change itself changes. The tendency of innovation is less toward novel or radical change and more toward incremental, cost-reducing refinements in product design and production technique.
• Similarly, the stimulus for change tends to come less from outside users’ suggestions or applications and more from the internal dynamics of learning-curve efficiencies.¹¹
• The key tasks of skilled labor in manufacturing work tend to become those of a systems overseer.
• Higher degrees of backward vertical integration are needed to assure control over delicately balanced sources of supply.
• Plant capacity tends to become sharply restricted to tightly integrated operations—that is, it comes more closely to approximate Skinner’s ideal of a “focused factory.”¹²

These newly perceived regularities are not just idle observations. They affirm, first of all, the long-neglected relevance of manufacturing and, by extension, the process technology that animates it to strategic thought.

Managers can no longer afford to view operations as a neutral apparatus for turning out goods. Every bit as much as, say, marketing, manufacturing has significant data to contribute to the broad process of strategic planning.

In fact, these regularities make clear just how important it is for corporate strategy to address the issue of achieving a proper mix among productive units at differing stages of development. As Abernathy suggests, contemporary business must attempt the “portfolio management” of productive units in the same way—and for the same reasons—that it has already undertaken the portfolio management of product lines.¹³

Corporate Diversification

A company’s organizational structure—no less than its distinctive manufacturing competence—has an important technological dimension that managers ignore at their peril.

The same growing appreciation for the strategic implications of technology emerges—if only indirectly—from the body of research on strategy and structure initiated by the classic work of Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. during the 1960s. In fact, these follow-up studies constitute one of the past decade’s richest aggregations of business-oriented research.¹⁴

They began with the construction by Bruce R. Scott of a three-stage model of corporate development in which, following Chandler, the stages represent a clear-cut historical sequence. Others then refined these stages to include more explicit consideration of the strategy appropriate to each.

Given the broad evolution of American companies toward a diversified, multidivisional form of organization, the studies have paid increasing attention to the strategic logic that holds such disparate organizations together. And it is precisely here—in their analyses of this logic—that they hold out great promise for enlivening the discussion of technology.

All diversified companies possess, of course, some underlying principle of order, internal relatedness, or synergistic fit among their constituent divisions. For a few (say, the glamorous conglomerates of the 1960s) this principle, however defined, may be purely financial; for most it involves a certain complementarity of managerial skill, financial structure, markets, and technology.

More to the point, as it applies to technology proper, it includes both a company’s distinctive technological competence and the ways in which that particular competence can lead to or tie in with others.

Understanding this principle of order or relatedness has been high on the agenda of the entire post-Chandler group. For example, in writing about diversification through internal development, Jon Didrichsen draws a useful distinction between a company with an “extensive central technology” and one with a “branching technology.”¹⁵

The former describes the kind of broad competence, such as that of Du Pont in organic chemicals, which offers a seemingly endless potential for throwing off new products; the latter, the kind of limited initial expertise, such as that of 3M in mining and abrasives, which typically evolves step by step in progressively unrelated directions.

Richard P. Rumelt, in sketching out a more elegant scheme of classification for diversified companies, goes much further toward providing generally workable definitions—and suitable economic measurements—for the several kinds and degrees of technological relatedness.¹⁶

More recently, E. Ralph Biggadike has applied the fruits of these definitional labors in his examination of corporate diversification into new product markets at the level of the individual business unit.¹⁷ At a more inclusive level, Malcolm S. Salter and Wolf A. Weinhold have applied them in evaluating the planning models by which top managers seek to create economic value through acquisitions.¹⁸

But whatever the sphere of practical application, we can draw the same inference: it is of great importance to identify and assess the nature of the relationship among a company’s distinctive technological competence, its organizational structure, and its overall strategic orientation.

But why is this tripartite relationship important? Most obviously, as does the work of Abernathy and others on product/process development, it reminds managers not to treat decisions about technology either as the sole responsibility of technical experts or as the indifferent residue of their own in-baskets.

How such decisions are made affects, directly or indirectly, all aspects of a company’s performance. As George R. White and Margaret B.W. Graham insist, on matters of technological choice the experts can usually be trusted to ask, “Are we doing the job right?” But it is the distinct function of general managers to ask, “Are we doing the right job?”¹⁹

Of equal importance, this tripartite relationship suggests that further work may discover certain sets of conditions under which various kinds of technological activity flourish most productively.

Thus the Chandler-inspired literature has the potential, as yet unrealized, to extend the relevance of contingency theory, as defined by Paul R. Lawrence and Jay W. Lorsch, beyond the findings of Tom Burns and G.M. Stalker or Joan Woodward on organizational structure to include the entire universe of technological concerns facing general managers.²⁰

Even though still a distant prospect, such an extension of contingency theory would be of immense help in better coupling the particular dynamics of technology with the established categories of thinking about business phenomena.

Need for Entrepreneurs

A company’s general strategic awareness of technology is not enough; the ongoing support of committed individuals within the company is necessary for genuine success.

In a small way, this kind of coupling has already begun to take place. For some time it has been recognized that technological innovation tends to be most successful when it receives the active support of someone like a “product champion”—an entrepreneurial individual personally concerned with its success.²¹

More to the point, the SAPPHO results (discussed earlier) indicate that the power and responsibility of the “business innovator”—the individual within an organization charged with the overall progress of an innovative project—are even more crucial to success.²²

Though their terminology for the roles involved varies a bit, other researchers, chief among them Edward B. Roberts at MIT, come to much the same conclusion: technological activity flourishes most productively when given enthusiastic sponsorship by entrepreneurially minded individuals within an organization and, more important, when given the detailed, personal attention of managers entrusted with the general strategic responsibilities of a business.²³ (The reader may be interested in Roberts’s article, “New Ventures for Corporate Growth,” in this issue.)

In short, what makes technology go is exactly what makes business go: coherent strategy and managers closely committed to it.

To be effective, then, technological decisions must be strategically sound, for technology strategy and business strategy are of a piece. As Kenneth R. Andrews has argued, “Technological developments are not only the fastest unfolding but the most far-reaching in extending or contracting opportunity for an established company.”²⁴

The past decade’s research on entrepreneurship, as on corporate diversification and product/process life cycles, leads inexorably in this direction. The frontier of opportunity is best represented by this increasingly shared recognition of the need to place technological issues in the fullest, most inclusive context of decision making.

Putting Technology into Strategy

The major unfinished business of the research literature is to provide managers with needed guidance in their formulation of a technological strategy for their companies.

For some time now the study of corporate strategy has been that area of business research most explicitly and intensively concerned with broadly inclusive decision making. However, only in the past several years has there been any substantial attempt to include technological considerations within the framework of strategy.

The first major effort in this direction was C.K. Prahalad’s 1973 essay on “Technology and Corporate Strategy,” the last section of which poses two key issues as a guide to further research: (1) the best means of linking a company’s technological profile with its corporate strategy and (2) the development of a general process (i.e., resource allocation) model for technological management.²⁵

Prahalad’s essay clearly identifies the fundamental question that has dominated further work in the area: “Is it realistic to conceive of a technological strategy for the firm?”²⁶ The best current review of this work, Richard S. Rosenbloom’s “Technological Innovation in Firms and Industries,” answers the question with a resounding yes.

After providing the most thoughtful overview to date of the various traditions of research on technological innovation, Rosenbloom makes a powerful case for strategy as the necessary basis for any interpretive “policy-oriented synthesis” on technological matters.²⁷

According to Rosenbloom, the idea of a technological strategy brings together significant aspects of the organizational and environmental contexts of innovation, thus directing attention toward the interaction of all relevant factors—including goals, structure, and leadership. Rosenbloom argues: “The strategy framework is particularly appealing because it integrates in two relevant dimensions.

“First, the concept of strategy formulation calls for a perspective that cuts across the boundary of the organization, matching capability (an aspect of the organizational context) with opportunity (an aspect of the environmental context). Unlike [other] modes of inquiry…the strategy framework demands explicit attention to technical, economic, social, political, and behavioral considerations simultaneously, as it embraces factors within the firm and external to it.

“In the second dimension, i.e., within the organizational context, the concept of strategy implementation requires the translation of higher-level strategic abstractions into more concrete and implementable terms. It is this aspect of strategy that gives shape to the organizational context. The twin concepts of formulation and implementation might be the basis for development of a theory of the linkage between organizational context and environmental context.”²⁸

In short, the concept of a technological strategy provides the necessary integrated—and integrative—framework for viewing a company’s technology within the context of its general business orientation.

To the limited extent that this notion has filtered into concrete research projects, its immediate effect has been, not surprisingly, to cause them to take seriously the problem of identifying a company’s technological strategy.

In turn, this effort has necessitated a comparable attempt to sketch out the various kinds of possible strategies—that is, to categorize the range of alternatives and to define their implications. It is this latter effort that now offers perhaps the most exciting prospects for future research.²⁹

There is as yet no sure agreement as to what these categories should be. As in the early stages of any new field of study, there is a gaggle of competing definitions too confusing to summarize briefly. A course note prepared by Modesto A. Maidique and Peter Patch at Harvard offers the best critical review presently available.³⁰

But the enterprise remains largely chaotic. Though one small corner of the field—the identification of various modes of technological venture management—has shaken out conceptually a bit more quickly than the rest, the overwhelming fact of the matter is that the most basic categories and terminology of technological strategy have not yet been satisfactorily determined.³¹

A Final Thought

Knowing the all-too-familiar “technology aversion” of many managers, Wickham Skinner reminds us that “a persistent pattern seen in the autopsies of the major operating crises of large corporations and of the final failures of many small companies is the inability of one or more key managers to understand and to manage the technological component of their businesses.” Skinner’s advice is clear and sensible:

“The importance of technology to corporations is evident. Corporations producing products or services must make decisions on their technology when they design products; plan services; choose equipment and processes; and devise operating facilities, distribution, and information systems.

“Because these decisions involve large commitments of funds and, often more important, large blocks of irreplaceable time, they are some of the most vital and critical decisions a top management makes. Once made, their reversal or even a major shift is apt to be difficult or even impossible. Unwise decisions on technological issues are frequently fatal in small business.”³²

Technological decisions are of fundamental importance to business and, therefore, must be made in the fullest context of each company’s strategic thinking. This is plain common sense. It is also the overwhelming message of the past decade’s research.

Technology strategy

Technology strategy (information technology strategy or IT strategy) is the overall plan which consists of objectives, principles and tactics relating to use of technologies within a particular organization. Such strategies primarily focus on the technologies themselves and in some cases the people who directly manage those technologies. The strategy can be implied from the organization’s behaviors towards technology decisions, and may be written down in a document. The strategy includes the formal vision that guide the acquisition, allocation, and management of IT resources so it can help fulfill the organizational objectives.

Other generations of technology-related strategies primarily focus on: the efficiency of the company’s spending on technology; how people, for example the organization’s customers and employees, exploit technologies in ways that create value for the organization; on the full integration of technology-related decisions with the company’s strategies and operating plans, such that no separate technology strategy exists other than the de facto strategic principle that the organization does not need or have a discrete ‘technology strategy’.

A technology strategy has traditionally been expressed in a document that explains how technology should be utilized as part of an organization’s overall corporate strategy and each business strategy. In the case of IT, the strategy is usually formulated by a group of representatives from both the business and from IT. Often the Information Technology Strategy is led by an organization’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) or equivalent. Accountability varies for an organization’s strategies for other classes of technology. Although many companies write an overall business plan each year, a technology strategy may cover developments somewhere between 3 and 5 years into the future.

The United States identified the need to implement a technology strategy in order to restore the country’s competitive edge. In 1983 Project Socrates, a US Defense Intelligence Agency program, was established to develop a national technology strategy policy.

Effective strategy

A successful technology strategy involves the documentation of planning assumptions and the development of success metrics. These establish a mission-driven strategy, which ensures that initiatives are aligned with the organization’s goals and objectives. This aspect underscores that the primary objective of designing technology strategy is to make sure that the business strategy can be realized through technology and that technology investments are aligned with business. Some experts underscore the successful technology strategy is one that is integrated within the organization’s overall business strategy not just to contribute to the mission and vision of the company but also get support from it.

There are frameworks (e.g. ASSIMPLER) available that provide insights into the current and future business strategy, assess business-IT alignment on various parameters, identify gaps, and define technology roadmaps and budgets. These highlight key information, which include the following:

The important components of information tech-strategy is information technology and strategic planning working together.
The IT strategy alignment is the capability of IT functionality to both shape, and support business strategy.
The degree to which the IT mission, objectives, and plans support and are supported by the business mission, objective, and plans.
For a strategy to be effective, it should also answer questions of how to create value, deliver value, and capture value. In order to create value one needs to trace back the technology and forecast on how the technology evolves, how the market penetration changes, and how to organize effectively. Capturing value requires knowledge how to gain competitive advantage and sustain it, and how to compete in case that standards of technology is important. The final step is delivering the value, where firms defines how to execute the strategy, make strategic decisions and take decisive actions. The Strategic Alignment Process is a step by step process that helps managers stay focused on specific task in order to execute the task and deliver value.

Meta-model of (IT) technology strategy

Aligned with Statement Of Applicability (SOA) approach, IT strategy is composed of IT Capability Model (ITCM) and IT Operating Model (IT-OM) as proposed by Haloedscape IT Strategy Model.

Framework of (IT) technology strategy

Process of IT Strategy is simplified with framework constituted of IT Service Management (ITSM), Enterprise Architecture Development (TOGAF) and Governance (COBIT). IT Strategy is modeled as vertical IT service applied to and supported by each horizontal layers of SOA architecture. For details, refer Haloedscape IT Strategy Framework.

The following are typically sections of a technology strategy:

• Executive Summary – This is a summary of the IT strategy
  • High level organizational benefits
  • Project objective and scope
  • Approach and methodology of the engagement
  • Relationship to overall business strategy
  • Resource summary
    • Staffing
    • Budgets
    • Summary of key projects
• Internal capabilities
  • IT project portfolio management – An inventory of current projects being managed by the information technology department and their status. Note: It is not common to report current project status inside a future-looking strategy document. Show Return on Investment (ROI) and timeline for implementing each application.
  • An catalog of existing applications supported and the level of resources required to support them
  • Architectural directions and methods for implementation of IT solutions
  • Current IT departmental

Includes a SWOT Analysis SWOT analysis

• Strengths
  • Current IT departments strengths
• Weaknesses
  • Current IT department weaknesses
• External Forces
  • Summary of changes driven from outside the organization
  • Rising expectations of users
    • Example: Growth of high-quality web user interfaces driven by Ajax technology
    • Example: Availability of open-source learning management systems
  • List of new IT projects requested by the organization
• Opportunities
  • Description of new cost reduction or efficiency increase opportunities
    • Example: List of available Professional Service contractors for short term projects
  • Description of how Moore’s law (faster processors, networks or storage at lower costs) will impact the organization’s ROI for technology
• Threats
  • Description of disruptive forces that could cause the organization to become less profitable or competitive
  • Analysis IT usage by competition
• IT Organization structure and Governance
  • IT organization roles and responsibilities
  • IT role description
  • IT governance
• Milestones
  • List of monthly, quarterly or mid-year milestones and review dates to indicate if the strategy is on track
  • List milestone name, deliverables and metrics

Audience

A technology strategy document is usually designed to be read by non-technical stakeholders involved in business planning within an organization. It should be free of technical jargon and information technology acronyms.

The IT strategy should also be presented or read by internal IT staff members. Many organizations will circulate prior year versions to internal IT department for feedback. The feedback is used to create new annual IT strategy plans.

One critical integration point is the interface with an organization’s marketing plan. The marketing plan frequently requires the support of a web site to create an appropriate on-line presence. Large organizations frequently have complex web site requirements such as web content management.

Implementation

The implementation of technology strategy will likely follow the conventional procedure taken when implementing a business strategy or an organization’s planned changes within the so-called change management framework. Fundamentally, it is directed by a manager who oversees the process, which could include gaining targeted organizational members’ commitment to an innovation. There are a number of strategic options available when implementing a technology strategy and one of these involves the structured approach. For instance, in the area of systematic exploration of emerging technologies, this approach help determine the relevance and opportunities offered by new technologies to business through its well-defined assessment mechanisms that can effectively justify adoption.

Relationship between strategy and enterprise technology architecture

A technology strategy document typically refers to but does not duplicate an overall enterprise architecture. The technology strategy may refer to:

• High-level view of logical architecture of information technology systems
• High-level view of physical architecture of information technology systems
• Technology rationalization plan

Technology Strategy & Transformation

Deloitte’s specialists help organizations reset their IT strategy and implement the systems and solutions, including cutting-edge cloud services, to re-energize performance across the enterprise.

Today’s IT and technology leaders are the multitasking wizards at the core of every successful enterprise. They are expected not only to build, maintain, and minimize disruption to the organization’s core technology operations, but also to be innovation leaders, drivers of talent and new product gurus—all while keeping their eye squarely on the bottom line.

Deloitte’s technology strategy and transformation specialists excel at smoothing your path. We help organizations develop the strategies and implement the systems that build business value and drive performance. From system replacement to IT transformation and implementing more efficient development processes, our professionals bring deep knowledge and experience to your most complex challenges.

Deloitte’s Technology Strategy, Vision & Architecture offerings provide the vision, strategy, and roadmap for wide-scale transformations to your IT infrastructure and operations, aligning the technological changes with business goals. We work with senior leadership to set the technology direction, help you define your target state—including desired components such as cloud services and on-premises functions—and prepare the plans for the transformation.

We’ll guide you through new high-level enterprise architecture as well as architectures for applications, data, and infrastructure. And we’ll help you select your technology vendors, providing guidance on complex issues such as the interaction between solution components to work toward a successful outcome and deliver performance, security, and scalability.

The Deloitte approach to Business of Technology Transformation will help your organization drive increased value from your day-to-day technology operations. Our teams support your IT ecosystem in areas such as cost reduction, design, governance, benchmarking performance, and selecting and managing outsourced solutions.

One of the biggest challenges facing IT and technology leaders is improving business agility and time-to-market. Our Enterprise Technology Agility Advisory teams will support you to engage the business sooner earlier in the development lifecycle to deliver systems faster. Working closely with Cloud Engineering and Systems Engineering teams, they will guide you though change-management processes and enhance your capabilities to take pilot projects and run with them to efficient, successful deployment. Ask how they can work with you on coaching, training, design of Agile development processes, refining KPIs, program management, and other deliverables.

Today’s IT and technology leaders are the multitasking wizards at the core of every successful enterprise. They are expected not only to build, maintain, and minimize disruption to the organization’s core technology operations, but also to be innovation leaders, drivers of talent and new product gurus—all while keeping their eye squarely on the bottom line.

Deloitte’s technology strategy and transformation specialists excel at smoothing your path. We help organizations develop the strategies and implement the systems that build business value and drive performance. From system replacement to IT transformation and implementing more efficient development processes, our professionals bring deep knowledge and experience to your most complex challenges.

Deloitte’s Technology Strategy, Vision & Architecture offerings provide the vision, strategy, and roadmap for wide-scale transformations to your IT infrastructure and operations, aligning the technological changes with business goals. We work with senior leadership to set the technology direction, help you define your target state—including desired components such as cloud services and on-premises functions—and prepare the plans for the transformation.

We’ll guide you through new high-level enterprise architecture as well as architectures for applications, data, and infrastructure. And we’ll help you select your technology vendors, providing guidance on complex issues such as the interaction between solution components to work toward a successful outcome and deliver performance, security, and scalability.

The Deloitte approach to Business of Technology Transformation will help your organization drive increased value from your day-to-day technology operations. Our teams support your IT ecosystem in areas such as cost reduction, design, governance, benchmarking performance, and selecting and managing outsourced solutions.

One of the biggest challenges facing IT and technology leaders is improving business agility and time-to-market. Our Enterprise Technology Agility Advisory teams will support you to engage the business sooner earlier in the development lifecycle to deliver systems faster. Working closely with Cloud Engineering and Systems Engineering teams, they will guide you though change-management processes and enhance your capabilities to take pilot projects and run with them to efficient, successful deployment. Ask how they can work with you on coaching, training, design of Agile development processes, refining KPIs, program management, and other deliverables.

Deloitte’s ServiceNow offering is a leading-edge tool to help businesses optimize their functions in IT service management and IT business management, HR services and governance, risk and compliance. ServiceNow’s next-generation cloud platform and our experts’ insights and sector knowledge combine to help you transform performance across your enterprise.

Also helping to transform business, the Internet of Things (IoT) is revolutionizing industries and delivering quantum leaps in productivity. But its technological complexities require deep knowledge and attention to detail. Deloitte IoT Strategy & Architecture services provide clients with strategy, vision, roadmaps, and architecture to deploy and integrate IoT technology into their operations. We work with you to identify IoT opportunities, set the technology direction, and design the architecture, advising on key components such as sensors, big data ingestion and analysis, real-time processing, and integration with your other IT systems.