Putting IT Strategy in Context

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In my travels over the past two decades, I have noticed the peculiar state of IT Strategy. Some worship at the altar of IT strategy as “it’s all in the strategy”, while others malign it as “the last thing we need is a strategy?”

While these are extremes and a majority of the views are somewhere in the middle, I do believe that the context for IT Strategy is not properly understood. Consequently, its development and implementation misses the mark.

The first step to an effective IT Strategy is to put it in context, i.e. understand its role and scope.

The Role of IT Strategy

IT Strategy sets the direction for an IT organization, just like business strategy sets direction for the enterprise. If this direction is correct then execution against it will result in the desired results, i.e. value creation. If this direction is not correct then the exact opposite will happen.

IT strategy does not say or do anything about the execution that follows in response to it. A good direction with flawed execution will still result in disaster. The blame, as it were, is not in the strategy but in the execution. Similarly, flawless execution in the wrong direction will not result in the desired outcome either.

IT Strategy enables the effectiveness of an IT Organization. IT Implementation defines its efficiency. Consequently, an IT Organization needs both, a good IT strategy and execution, for value creation.

Quite often, we miss this point, and debate the relative importance of IT strategy versus execution. One can understand, if the debate is on relative emphasis i.e. how much time and effort should an organization devote to each? However, pitting them against each other an “either or” equation is counterproductive.