In my consultancy work with different organisations, I get asked what makes for an effective ICT strategy. Also on a related basis, is there a difference between an IS strategy and an IT strategy? In this blog, I give my 2c on these two related topics.

ICT – Supporting and driving the business

The ICT strategy must support both the organisation’s business strategy and also show how ICT can be used to provide opportunities for new ways of doing business. These two characteristics are not necessarily the same thing. An organisation’s business strategy shows where the organisation is going and the reasons for the direction being taken. It is important that the ICT strategy supports the objectives as set out by the business strategy, but also that the ICT strategy should provide for innovation and showing new opportunities for doing business.

This is a dual objective that should be at the core of an effective ICT strategy. It is important to remember that an organisation, even one selling technology products/services, wants solutions that demonstrate practical value, rather than just systems.

ICT = IS + IT

There is a difference between IS and IT strategies. To that end, an effective ICT strategy is a combination of an IS strategy and IT strategy. The characteristics of a successful IS strategy include;

• Business based
• Demand orientated
• Information focused

The IS strategy is driven by business management, allowing them to describe the business goals, requirements and information requirements that are going to help an organisation be a success. For example, an information requirement could be ‘real-time reporting on product sales across all sales regions’. This is ‘demand-focused’ with the ‘customer’ stating their requirement(s).

The IT strategy is ‘supply-oriented’, specifying the IT infrastructure, systems and services that will meet the demands of the IS strategy. I would see the following characteristics of a successful IT strategy;

1. Activity based
2. Supply orientated
3. Technology focused

Taking our ‘demand’ example in the IS strategy for real-time sales information, the IT response could be for a data quality review, along with real-time interfaces from the sales transaction system into a data mart or warehouse to provide the reporting facility with specifics on the database platform, the api’s etc.

Benefits of a combination

By developing an IS strategy, using a top-down approach with contributions from business management, it helps to ensure that the overall ICT strategy has the appropriate sponsorship and the appropriate business objectives as a foundation.

With the IT strategy, the approach is a bottom-up with ongoing input and experimentation from the IT staff. This helps to ensure that no ‘local’ issues get lost and also ensures that creativity and initiative is facilitated in the process.

The two step process (IS + IT) encourages an agile approach which can cater for any business or technology changes and also provides a series of ongoing deliverables to demonstrate the progress of the strategy.

What drives a successful ICT strategy

The importance of agility is important because organisations do and must change direction due to market forces. Hence the ICT strategy needs to adaptable as well.

A good collaborative relationship between business and IT management is important to help create and review an ICT strategy. If that collaborative relationship is further supported by a business savviness among the IT management and a technical savviness among the business management, then the omens are good.

Finally, as with any business supplier, if the IT organisation has a successful track record, the resulting credibility will be very important for the strategy process.