Planning and Executing IT Strategy

Planning leads to effective execution of any activity, whether it's IT or any business function. Planning ensures that technology efforts are business driven, aligned with business strategies, and coordinated across the company as opposed to being done in silos (each business unit acting in a compartmentalized manner). Planning can save money by taking advantage of corporate policies and standards across the enterprise. It can also eliminate the duplication of efforts by using shared services, implementing architectural principles, and using single research groups within a firm. Further benefits of planning include directing investments in technology and people toward improving the bottom line, serving customers better, and outperforming the competition. Planning and executing IT programs requires understanding how IT functions. In this article the author show i) how leaders can align IT within the business environment ii) how easy it is to understand technology operations within a business environment, and iii) how to capitalize on the use of technology through effective planning.