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Should there be a strategy for the IT department in the company? What is the meaning of the heads of internal IT departments in the strategy? Who develops a strategy and when?

Probably, every CIO had a need to write an IT strategy. This is like a guessing game: if you do not guess, then the strategy will not be adopted on the board of directors, if you guess, then there is a big gap between the current state of affairs and the one written in the strategy.

Good strategies are few. Consultants are invited to develop strategies. The expensive documents they created are carefully kept as a trade secret. As the importance of information technology for business, IT directors become more and more, and not everyone is given the opportunity to turn to consultants to develop a strategy. Let’s think about how to create an IT strategy ourselves for successful work, and not “on the knee”, but based on modern techniques and standards.

The role of manager

It is widely believed that an IT strategy is created based on the company’s business plan. This situation is usually classified as strategic planning. In fact, if a business strategy is ready, then there is not enough free space for developing an IT strategy. Rather, it turns out that you need to look for specific IT solutions to implement the existing business strategy, that is, for strategic planning.

In practice, it most often happens that the IT manager offers business customers new technologies and the benefits that they provide, and only then, based on them, the business builds its strategy. To prepare scenarios for the development of IT in the regions, a methodology for the application of technologies and improvements, organizational changes, the creation of centers of competence for technologies, etc. – these are just a small circle of tasks that arise when developing an IT strategy. The solution to these problems is beyond the power of the managers responsible for future business performance in the regions.

Thus, to the question of who is developing an IT strategy, there is a definite answer – an IT director. Nobody will do this work for him. If the IT manager does not use strategic planning based on an analysis of the current situation or existing business strategy, then he will have to develop a vision for three to five years, that is, a strategic vision.

When a strategy is needed

Obviously, it is not always needed. There are situations when it helps, but it happens that the strategy is formal. Consider informal strategies that benefit the company: they focus the team on fulfilling strategic goals, allow you to plan tactical actions, make interaction with related departments more transparent, etc.

The emergence of a strategy is associated with the emergence of competition: in the absence of competition, a strategy is not needed, since the main stimulus for development disappears. But nobody canceled the competition in the internal environment of an organization when various departments compete for budget funds, new staff, better working conditions, and intangible incentives from the board of directors and the general director. There is no doubt that IT services compete in this domestic market with the services of a marketing department and accounting. Everyone is familiar with controversial situations when deciding on priorities for the use of budget funds – and so these disputes are one of the manifestations of competition.