Marketing Your IT Strategic Planning Process:

Relationship Building with Business Stakeholders

Fred MappEFMApril 10, 2013

Lets start with a few questions

Why are we here?

What is the Business Problem? CIO Survey Results

Why should you care about marketing IT?

How good is your relationship with the business?

How do we communicate the strategic plan?

Why technology?

Do we have the right people?

How do we measure success?

What is the overall strategy?

Introduction

CIO Survey Results

When do you meet and what do you talk about with your business partners?

The implementation of a Technology Strategy must be targeted toward a clearly defined value creation focus:

Top-line growth – Technology projects that primarily generate revenue

Bottom-Line optimization growth – Technology projects that yield profit

Shareholder value growth – Technology projects that increase the value of the company

• Customer retention

• Market share

CIO

“I promise that this technology strategic plan will meet your needs and provide business value”

What Business Problem are You Trying To Solve?

A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with timing and resources, used to achieve an objective.

A goal or objective is a desired result a person or a system envisions, plans and commits to achieve—a personal or organizational desired end-point in some sort of assumed development. Many people endeavor to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines.

Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. In order to determine the direction of the organization, it is necessary to understand its current position and the possible avenues through which it can pursue a particular course of action. Generally, strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions:

"What do we do?"

"For whom do we do it?"

"How do we excel?"

Definition: A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a vision

What did we do, For Whom did we do it and How did we excel?

What were the objectives?

How did they impact the business?

Did we achieve the objectives?

Would the business agree?

Did we make a difference?

Why do we continue to ask the question about what IT needs to do to support the business?

Is IT truly committed to solving business problems or is the focus on technology implementation?

Is IT focused only on “operate and maintain? Grow data centers Implement latest technology fads

Marketing Your Report Card

Business Processes andRequirements

Sales Fin. Mfg. HR

Provide a “three year” technology roadmap and time-line with a thorough and well-articulated

plan for software and hardware deployment

IT TechnologyPlans andRoadmap

ERP CRM SCM

Infrastructure

DEV

Building the Strategy Based on Business Needs

Who Calls the Shots?

Source – CFO Research Services

The findings are based on a survey of 382 senior finance executives and 300 senior IT executives working in a wide variety of companies. It was conducted in December 2011 and January 2012

Collaboration with peers

How good is the relationship?

How are decisions made?

How are requirements captured?

How effective in building the strategy?

How to market?

Why Focus on Relationship Management?

To better understand and support your business needs and improve communication, IT has defined a new role, ‘Relationship Manager’

A Relationship Manager…

Provides IT consulting services the Business Units

Conducts business process analyses & needs assessments

Aligns technology solutions and business strategies

Facilitates and maintains the strategic planning process

Relationship Manager

Information Sharing with Account Managers:

Staff meetings Planning sessions Hold Relationship

Management Forums One-on-ones

Information Sharing with Account Managers:

Staff meetings Planning sessions Hold Relationship

Management Forums One-on-ones

Quick Hitters: Tactical development Temporary Fixes Quick turnaround

Quick Hitters: Tactical development Temporary Fixes Quick turnaround

IT Project Qualification Review Boards Role:

Hold Steering committee meetings Translates business needs Review technology alternatives Review cost/benefit

IT Project Qualification Review Boards Role:

Hold Steering committee meetings Translates business needs Review technology alternatives Review cost/benefit

Project Prioritization: Investment decisions Demonstrates ROI Prepare for executive approval

Project Prioritization: Investment decisions Demonstrates ROI Prepare for executive approval

Feedback Loop: Process improvement Customer satisfaction

Feedback Loop: Process improvement Customer satisfaction

It all starts here

Relationship Management Process

Another step, Survey your users

Meeting with users

Ask about their strategic direction

Assess how they rate their process, their current application and importance of automation

Follow up sessions to review survey results

Showcase your deliverables

Newsletter of current IT events

When was your last survey?

Relationship Management Assessment Survey

The transformation of IT: Jumping the chasm

• Some can make it easily

• Some will need training

• Some will need a jet pack

• Some will not make the cut

Former

Skills

New

Skills

Do You Have the Right Skills to Execute the Strategy?

Strategic

Direction

How is IT Success Measured?

Source – CFO Research Services

Do Your Metrics Make Sense to Your Users?

NumberOf CallsClosed

NumberOf CallsClosed

ResponseTime

ResponseTime

VersusSystems

AvailabilitySystems

Availability

Number ofon Time

Shipments

Number ofon Time

Shipments Responseto Changein Market

Responseto Changein Market

On TimeClose

On TimeClose

TECHNICAL BUSINESS

A Perfect Order

A Perfect Order

What Needs to be Measured?

Survey Your Customers

IT Strategic Direction Killers

Top 6 Killers in Implementing Strategy

Unclear communication of responsibility and/or accountability for execution decisions or actions

Poor or inadequate information sharing between individual or business units responsible for strategy execution

Poor or vague strategy

 Inability to manage change effectively or to overcome internal resistance to change (cultural issue)

 Lack of feelings of “ownership” of a strategy or execution plans among key employees

Lack of sharing the vision

Execute

Develop an IT Executable PlanDevelop an IT

Executable Plan

Plans to AchieveCompanyObjectives

Plans to AchieveCompanyObjectives

Initiatives

Objectives,

Strategies,

and Metrics

Company

Core Values

Strategic Framework

Execute, Execute, Execute

Questions & Answers

Fred MappCSO

BestIT

Fred MappCSO

BestIT