IT Strategic Roadmap – A SatNav for your Organisation
The IT Strategic Roadmap process is a navigator of the business-IT direction for the modern organisation. Just as we as individuals need direction to arrive at our planned destinations, organisations need to understand their desired Future State (or destination) and have a dependable plan to get there. The ITSR process delivers this through a true business goals-driven approach to IT strategy.
The value of an IT Strategy to any organisation, as a concept, is not in question. A well executed IT Strategy will:
- Ensure that business imperatives are communicated and understood by the IT function
- Align all stakeholders to focus on IT investments based on the critical needs of the business
- Direct the mix of capital versus operational expenditure based on strategic business goals
- Map infrastructure and applications portfolios as input to the enterprise architecture
- Provide clear responsibility for the implementation and delivery of the strategy.
From experience, CSC has found that the formulation of an IT Strategy document is not where organisations falter. Whether a PowerPoint presentation or a veritable tome, the document is of no value if it fails to address all of the points above. Invariably, organisations fall short in ensuring that the IT Strategy is aligned to the strategic goals and imperatives of the business.
IT Strategic Roadmap (ITSR) methodology
CSC has developed the ITSR methodology specifically to ensure that IT Strategic planning will be driven by business-IT alignment within an enterprise. The approach has its origins in our extensive experience in IT strategic planning and our large outsourcing engagements where we have taken on the role of application portfolio management.
CSC's Fusion model
A simple but powerful way of visualising this alignment (or lack thereof) is CSC's Fusion model:
One of the core ITSR techniques, this analytical tool allows the major gaps and overlaps in the business-IT alignment to be revealed and then addressed with specific remediation initiatives.
Best Practice based on practitioner experience
The ITSR methodology has evolved as we have been implementing it for customers across a number of distinct industry sectors from manufacturing to government agencies and utilities. The most recent engagement is between CSC Australia’s Business Consulting group and an Australian Water Utility.
Plus - contrary to the popular aphorism, the cobbler’s children do indeed wear shoes in this case! CSC is addressing its own internal IT Strategy using the ITSR approach.