Posts Tagged ‘Plan’
I.T. Strategic Planning – Two Key Ingredients
Two Key Ingredients To A Successful I.T. Strategic Plan
Before entering into an I.T. Strategic Planning session there are two key areas of your business you need to be well versed, it will make or break your plan. Prepare your team and arm them with the right information, they will develop a sound strategy that may only require minor corrections 3 – 5 years down the road. Every plan needs to be updated and adjusted as to ensure it is inline with the business needs.
I’m not going to go into great detail here but you will get the picture, there are many steps in developing a sound strategy and it’s up to you, The Leader, to ensure you equip your team with as much information as possible. Without the right tools & information the exercise will take twice as long and you will most likely never provide solutions for your organization, hence you may not be kept on for a second shot at it.
KEY #1
As a Leader in your organization you know what it means to be well informed and it’s no different for this team, in order for the strategic team to be successful you must be able to articulate the companies business plan in simple terms. Your team needs to understand the company objectives and how they originally planned to achieve them, otherwise there is no target, no way to know which direction to go, this business plan is a compass. If you do not know or someone on your I.T. Strategic Planning Team is not privy to this information, stop and get it, this information will set the tone of your plan. Get a strong understanding of this business plan at high level at the minimum, as it is must have information.
KEY #2
You must know ALL your organizations business processes. What are the processes that take place in one business day to get the job done for each department in your company. This is important to know because you’ll want an inventory of all processes so they can be reviewed to determine which ones can and can not be automated. This key is also critical in order to find the right ERP solution for your organization should that be identified as a project in your I.T. Plan for the next 3 – 5 years. Some call this the pulse of the business, it is the oil, the workflow that determines profitability or the lack of, you need to get a good handle on this item to ensure you are identifying, addressing and eliminating broken parts of your system or systems.
As you can see the above are preliminary but are essential if you want to be of value to your organizations future success. You also need to have a good understanding of these two keys for step one in designing your I.T. Strategic Plan, step one is the Vision / Mission of your I.T. Department. Without that understanding it will hamper your efforts to find your voice, to articulate your vision to those who are looking to you to solve and provide the best service possible to the whole organization.
Feel free to leave your comments and input, if you wish to hire Owen to help you develop an I.T. Strategic Plan simpy e-mail me at:
Until next time 🙂
What's Your Social Media Plan?
Like a Business Plan or an I.T. Strategic Plan you should know why you are using Social Media Networks. Most businesses are oblivious to this marketing phenomenon and really don’t understand it’s value. The challenge is that when someone asks what it is, they talk like it’s a bunch of friends getting together for coffee and chatting it up. It’s more than a water cooler. In my opinion, FaceBook has cornered the market on catching up with old school buddies but it really hasn’t figured out how to be more than a playground for old friends on recess. Just my point of view, you may feel different about it.
If you think you have to have a large business to enter into the Social Media arena, your dead wrong, all you need to do is build a plan, then you will experience it’s true value. Despite what you may think, it’s not about advertising, positioning and jockeying for the #1 spot on Twitter Grader, that isn’t the goal. Google does this already but doesn’t tell you their secrets on how they control who gets ranked the highest. If you don’t plan the use of this new marketing environment you will waste time and wonder what happened, you’ll wonder if it wasn’t a distraction from you current goals and objectives. You will eventually use those tools as one way to measure your standing but you will be planting a banyan tree so don’t expect an immediate return on your investment.
So what’s am I talking about?
Let’s assume you have a business plan and you actually sat down and built an I.T. Strategic Plan, which one does the Social Media Strategy fit into? Truthfully? It doesn’t fit into either, it should be in your Marketing Strategy, unless you’ve decided to build your own Social Network, build a team to run it and build the infrastructure to support it, only then should it go into your business plan as a way to promote and develop brand. I’ll also assume you have a good understanding of the fore mentioned plans, if not, go study them before you start down this trail.
Building a large following is not as hard as it may seem, it does requires time & effort, it also requires a carefully crafted message to ensure you obtain reach that will generate activity and eventually revenue. So, your vision should be more about how you will use it rather than making it an entity all it’s own, where will it fit in the marketing strategy and what resources will it require, how big will it be and who on your team knows anything about it? Do you need to hire a consultant to help you incorporate Social Media into your marketing efforts? The questions are many and there many of us that can guide you to a sound plan in using the likes of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the great many others.
First Steps:
1.) Review your Business Plan
2.) Review your I.T. Plan if you have one
3.) Build a team to work with a consultant
4.) Hire an outside consultant to walk you through the need for Social Media Marketing
Wading into the Social Media Environment doesn’t have to be difficult, get help and build your plan. Until next time, be good, if you can’t be good, be yourself 🙂