In Bill Clinton 's successful 1992 presidential campaign, strategist James Carville coined a slight variation of the phrase “it’s the economy, stupid.” The phrase is often repeated by political commentators to highlight that the economy is the fundamental issue that politicians have to address. It’s the strategy, stupid, is my variation on this phrase.
I think most law firm partners and leaders would agree that the legal services market place is undergoing transformational change. Any law firm considering how to move forward in this challenging environment has to have strategy as the starting point.
With all the talk about the need to innovate with technology, it’s easy to make the mistake of jumping right into selecting the technology to
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It all comes down to creating business value. An IT or technology strategy is a way for you to ensure that all of the resources allocated to technology are focussed on achieving outcomes that are aligned with creating that business value.
What is an IT strategy?
An IT or technology strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines how all facets of technology will be utilised and managed within an organisation. It is used to guide organisations on how technology can help them achieve their goals, boost their competitiveness and increase their chances of success through technological innovation, cost savings and process automation. An IT strategy should not be driven by decisions to adopt particular technologies, in fact the decisions about what technologies to adopt should be outcomes from the IT strategy.
The IT strategy should consider all areas of technology management, including cost control, skills, infrastructure, systems, and risk management. It should also assess how investments in these areas will support the overall business strategy. An IT strategy should be reviewed often to take account of changing internal and external factors, and an effective IT strategy should enable IT to be flexible enough to adapt to these
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• What technology investments will provide the best return on investment?
• What value is the organisation deriving from the use of technology?
• Is the existing technology agile enough to meet the future needs of the organisation?
• Are the IT risks understood and being effectively managed?
• Is IT being properly managed?
When faced with the task of creating an IT Strategy, its usefulness may be questioned. Completing one takes time and effort, and requires funding, and it is unlikely to have any immediate benefit. As the name implies, the benefits from a well thought out IT strategy are strategic in nature:
• Reduced risks;
• Flexible technology infrastructure capable of meeting future business needs;
• Increased efficiencies and improved productivity;
• Reduced IT operational costs; and
• Competitive advantage through the adoption of technology.
Pre-requisites for an IT Strategy
There are several things to consider before starting on the development of an IT strategy:
Governance – Who will be responsible for managing the development of the IT strategy and the ongoing oversight of it? Without clear accountability, the delivery of successful outcomes is
Clinton, Bill. “IT’S STILL THE ECONOMY, STUPID. (Cover Story)” Newsweek 157.26 (2011): 34. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Two organizations that show the importance of aligning a company’s business strategy with their IT strategy are Cirque du Soleil and Major League Baseball. Both of these organizations rely on digital technology to make it easier to provide to their customers better entertainment through collaboration.
The more we use and/or rely on computer technology, the more risky it gets. As Neil Postman has said, technology gives us something, it will take away something, I’d like to make a very small change to that and I declare that technology gives us a few things but take away many and the most fundamental things away. And I believe that the reason why no one really speaks about the disadvantages of computer technology is because the marketing of the products will certainly affect the product launching company. I hope one day we all realize where life’s taking us and try to find a resolution even though it may be a little late. But neither does trying not hurt nor a little outcome is better than
Shane, Scott. Technology Strategy for Managers and Entrepreneurs. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.
Iskandar, M., & Salleh, N. A. M. (2010). IT Governance in Airline Industry: A Multiple Case Study. International Journal of Digital Society, 1(4), 308-314.
Information Technology (IT) is a foundation for conducting business today. It plays a critical role in increasing productivity of firms and entire nation. It is proven that firms who invested in IT have experienced continued growth in productivity and efficiency. Many companies' survival and even existence without use of IT is unimaginable. IT has become the largest component of capital investment for companies in the United States and many other countries.
• Strategic management involves both strategy formation, called it content) and also strategy implementation, called it process.
Numerous definitions of strategy exist, in most circumstances strategy can loosely be explained as an overall plan of deployment of resources to ascertain a favourable position within a market (Zablah, Bellenger and Johnston 2004; Grant 1994, p 14). Further, imbedded in many successful organisations are strategies, the importance of which is to remain relevant in the market, and successful in the various attributes of business; profiteering, employee motivation, maintaining sustainable core competencies, effectiveness in operation, or efficiency in the conduction of operations. Therefore challenges involved in the formulation and implementation of a strategy can revolve around the overall external market, as well as internal
Thompson, A. A., Strickland, A. J., & Gamble, J. E. (2008). Crafting & executing strategy: The quest for competitive advantage (16th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Henderson and Venkatraman proposed a model for business – IT alignment; it was intended to support the integration of information technology (IT) into business strategy by advocating alignment between and within four domains (see figure 1). The inter-domain alignment is pursued along two dimensions: strategic fit (between the external and internal domain) and functional integration (between the business domain and the IT domain). The objective of this model was to provide a way to align information technology with business objectives in order to realise value from IT investments. The authors argued that the potential strategic impact of information technology requires both an understanding of the critical components of IT strategy and its role in supporting and shaping business strategy decisions and a process of continuous adaptation and change. Hence, they presented a model that defines the range of strategic choices facing managers.
10 IT business Principles describe how effectively you align your business strategies and how much benefits you got from IT-Business alignments basically IT organize resources of an organization according to its needs. It provides basic and operational services to business individually or collaboratively if business need it. IT innovate company structure services, operations and management with technology day by day. IT enables an organization to utilize its resources effectively and efficiently. IT integrated with Business objectives to achieve goals, so create understanding to all stockholders of business with Compliance of IT applications, rules and policies. IT helps in designing and reviewing business process to make them effective and
Thompson, A.A., Strickland, A.J., & Gamble, J. E. (2010). Crafting and executing strategy: The quest for competitive advantage: Concepts and cases: 2009 custom edition (17th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill-Irwin
In its broadest sense, it is a part of the overall governance of an entity, but with a specific focus on improving the management and control of Information Technology for the benefit of the primary stakeholders. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the Board of Directors to ensure that IT along with other critical activities is adequately governed. Although the principles are not new, actual implementation requires new thinking because of the special nature of IT.” (National Computing Centre, n.d.).
A successful business strategy will identify changes in the external trends in the market place. Plan out what the company’s future direction is. Set out the goals for the management team. It will identify a vision of where the company wants to be in the future. Keep all employees informed of the direction of the company.
Strategic planning implies establishing in advance what an individual or organization wants to achieve within a specified timeframe and deriving ways on how to achieve that. A strategic plan is basically a course of action that is used to attain desired results. It means anticipating the future and having measures on how to grow into the future. Technology is a macroeconomic factor that is rapidly growing and changing. Technology has had positive effects all over across the globe to business organization and to individuals.