In any small business or corporation, strategy planning is an essential part of a business process. No matter how well a plan is formed, it might not produce the desired result at times. Most often, a strategic plan becomes a thing that can be looked and kept aside.
But is a plan doesn’t always produce the result as expected, they why is it formed at the first place? How can IT strategy help a business success? Why are firms providing IT consultancy in Virginia emphasis on the importance to create a strategic plan for a business?
As once said by author and businessman Stephen Covey, “begin with the end in mind,” the planning process has the essence of this saying. With no goal and vision for a business’s future, how can a company even expect to reach there? When it comes to IT, strategic planning helps us stay up-to-date with the technological advancements happing in the world. Besides this, it allows businesses to create a system to achieve what they want to.
So let’s delve deep into why having an IT strategy can help your small business go big and grow strong.
Allows us to respond to change
It is an undeniable fact that the world of IT is always evolving. Every day a new technological advancement takes over another. Only those businesses that are capable of modifying themselves to these changes can leverage the potentials of technology. The rest who are not prepared for the shift succumb to it. For instance, Netflix could envision the future of video streaming and how it will grow into a money making business. As a result, it is now a successful online video streaming company.
On the contrary, Blockbuster, its competitor, overlooked the hype and kept focusing on video rental services. Here, Blockbuster’s inability to predict the future and mold its business operations brought its death warrant. Netflix could sense the video streaming revolution and prepared the business model that could help it navigate its way to the future.
The lesson: Merely having a strategic plan cannot save a business. But having the ability to predict the future and prepare for it can protect a company. With strategic planning, one can be assured that the business is operating well and have all the necessary plans in place to adapt to any technological changes. Besides this, it also prepares the business for any sudden change that might emerge.
A way to address Shadow IT
IT consultancy firms would agree that there has been a significant rise it Shadow IT. To put this term into simple language, Shadow IT is an IT department formed by individual units rather than the business’s central IT department. It evolves in a big organization that often fails to address IT issues pertaining in small units and sectors. With strategic planning in place, businesses can identify and address the root cause of such Shadow IT. It also helps in resolving the IT issues faced by each department and incorporating them to form a holistic IT solution.