When businesses seek IT strategy consulting the conversation often begins with technology. Should we move to the cloud? Do we need Microsoft 365? Should we replace our servers? Which firewall should we buy? Would automation help?
These are reasonable questions. They just aren’t necessarily the right place to start.
Technology should solve a problem or support an objective. If you start with the technology itself, there’s a risk that the project becomes about implementing a particular product rather than achieving a useful outcome. A good IT strategy starts somewhere else – it starts with the business.
What are you trying to achieve with your IT strategy?
Before choosing a technology, it’s worth understanding what the organisation actually needs. Perhaps you’re growing and your existing infrastructure is becoming difficult to manage. Perhaps employees are spending too much time on manual processes. Perhaps your systems aren’t providing the information management needs to make decisions. Perhaps you’re concerned about cyber security. Or perhaps your IT simply isn’t keeping up with the way the business operates.
These are business problems. Cloud, software, automation, networking and cyber security are potential ways of addressing them – and that distinction matters.
Technology should follow requirements
Imagine a business decides it needs to “move everything to the cloud.” That’s a technology decision. A better starting point is to ask why.
If the objective is to reduce infrastructure management, improve resilience, support remote working or make it easier to scale, then cloud services may be an appropriate solution. But once you understand the actual requirement, you can evaluate the options properly. Sometimes that will mean moving to the cloud. Sometimes it won’t – there are still situations where on-premise infrastructure, hybrid environments or a combination of different technologies make more sense.
The best technical solution isn’t necessarily the most modern one. It’s the one that meets the requirements without introducing unnecessary complexity or cost. This is a fundamental principle of good IT strategy – requirements first, technology second.
Understand what you already have
Another common mistake is jumping into a new project without properly understanding the existing environment. Before changing anything, you should know:
- What systems are currently in use
- Who relies on them
- What information they hold
- Which systems integrate with each other
- Where the biggest operational risks are
- What’s approaching the end of its useful life
- What security controls are already in place
- What the organisation actually spends on IT
- Which processes are creating the most friction
This sounds obvious, but it’s surprisingly easy to overlook. An organisation can spend significant amounts of money replacing a system only to discover the real problem was the process around it.
Don’t solve yesterday’s problem with tomorrow’s technology
Technology changes quickly, and that creates an understandable temptation to keep up. A new platform becomes available. AI is suddenly everywhere. Cloud services continue to evolve. New security products promise better protection. Some of these technologies will provide genuine value. Others won’t.
A 2018 study by the British Computer Society found that only 13% of IT projects were delivered on time, within budget, and to specification — a reminder that most failures come down to planning and requirements, not the technology itself. Read more at Limelight Consulting.
An IT strategy should be based on business requirements rather than technology trends. Automation, for example, can be extremely useful when a process is repetitive, predictable and time-consuming – but automating a poorly designed process doesn’t necessarily make things better. You may simply end up doing the wrong thing faster. The same principle applies to AI, cloud migration and almost every other area of technology.
Security should be part of your IT strategy
Cyber security is sometimes treated as something to add to an IT project once the technical design has already been decided. It shouldn’t be.
Security requirements should be considered from the beginning – understanding what data the organisation holds, who needs access to it, how systems are connected, what the consequences of an incident would be, and what regulatory or contractual requirements apply. Security isn’t a separate layer that can always be added afterwards. It’s part of the design.
Cost isn’t just the purchase price
Technology decisions are often compared using the initial purchase price, which can be misleading. The real cost of a system may include implementation, migration, integration, licensing, training, support, security, maintenance, future upgrades and staff time.
A solution that appears inexpensive initially may become expensive to operate. Conversely, a larger upfront investment can sometimes reduce ongoing costs or operational risk. The important thing is to understand the total cost of ownership rather than simply comparing purchase prices.
How Good IT Strategy Consulting Makes Decisions Easier
A useful IT strategy consulting engagement doesn’t need to produce a hundred-page document. It should give the organisation a clear understanding of where it is now, where it needs to get to, and what needs to happen to get there. That typically means:
- Understanding the current environment
- Identifying business requirements
- Assessing risks and opportunities
- Defining priorities
- Evaluating technology options
- Building a realistic roadmap
- Measuring whether the changes delivered the expected outcome
The technology comes somewhere in the middle. Not at the beginning.
Start with the problem
There’s nothing wrong with being excited about technology. The mistake is assuming that technology is automatically the answer.
At Base3, we work with organisations to understand their requirements before recommending how technology can support them. Whether the challenge involves managed IT, cloud, cyber security, data or software development, the starting point should always be the same: what are you trying to achieve? Once that’s clear, the technology becomes much easier to choose.
IT Strategy Consulting from Base3
Base3 provides IT strategy consulting and managed IT services and technology consulting across the UK, helping organisations work out what they actually need before recommending how to get there.
If you’d like help thinking through your IT strategy, get in touch for a no-obligation conversation.