An Information Technology Plan
How do you know you're getting the most bang for your IT Buck?
Setting your business' IT direction.
Many businesses make the mistake of building an IT infrastructure without a plan. This almost always results in wasted money and poor IT performance. IBD's decades of IT leadership experience can help you develop a strategy and plan that will better manage your costs, reduce risk to your data and leverage technology for your business' advantage.
Building a business takes time, talent, energy and a plan! Creating that plan requires that you know your customers and understand what they want, need and expect of your business. Knowing your customers enables you to define the goals and objectives of your plan. Executing that plan should enable you to satisfy your customers’ need for your products or services.Providing your customers with products and services requires the planning of resources (money, people, facilities, business functions, products/services and supporting information). The plan describes who, what, where, when, how, and why your business will expend various resources to meet the goals and objectives of your business in satisfying your customer’s needs.
Another way of thinking about your business is from an architectural perspective. That is having the business plan broken up into smaller specific plans that assist in meeting your business’ objectives. Specific examples include a human resource plan, a financial plan, or an operations plan. Not having clearly defined plans in these areas can cause your business to flounder and at the very least, waste cash. It is the same for planning the use of information technologies. Not planning the use and the application of information technologies can cost your business millions of dollars!
Today, building business systems are intertwined with information technology-based components. One way of successfully developing an information technology plan is answer the questions of who, what, where, when, how and why as a way to assess your information needs to satisfy your business’ goals.
| Level | What | How | Where | When | Who | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broad understanding of Business Needs & Requirements | Types of Information | Business Processes | World-wide Locations | Time Period | Persons | Reasons, Goals & Objectives |
| Detail Business System | Data | Business Activities | Specific Locations | Specified Timing | Need what information | Specific Reason |
| Implemented Business System | Stored Data | Business Tasks | Method to communicate to location | Actual Time | Delivery of context and information | Specific goal |
IBD can work with you to develop an IT plan that is aligned with your business goals. WE provide a Business-Driven Strategic IT Planning and mentoring program which can be customized for business. To learn more about using this approach to IT planning, contact us.