How can you align your tech with business goals?

Often, the discord between IT and other business units arises from differing goals. Analyze your current IT strategy and decision-making procedures in relation to the company's overall objectives. It's typical for separate IT departments to prioritize tasks that don't align with other business divisions. Sync your modern IT performance metrics with distinct business goals, creating a loop centered on a shared vision from the start, enabling ongoing assessment and enhancement.

One of the best ways for an enterprise to get started on this journey of its Tech stack assessment is to get an experts from outside. There are two clear benefits - (a) these experts can bring the OUTSIDE-IN view, like fresh ideas, best practices from the marketplace (b). These experts can do this AS-IS assessment much more effectively & quickly based on their tools, techniques. One pre-requisite is that the firm's leadership and it's team should be open & willing to support rather than feel threatened & competitive. The other important angle is to ensure such analysis is holistic in nature, which means, it should cover how the Tech stack is doing - functionally, non-functionally (like security, performance), operationally & commercially.

Technology and Software Audits are key to determining your current state. A 360 degree audit will help you answer questions as simple as Do you have the right Internet speed for your business? is it reliable?, to those included in this paragraph and more complex ones such as What would the hourly cost to your company be if essential IT systems experienced downtime? How would the loss of Internet access impact your business? What implications would a data breach have on your company, reputation and customer loyalty? What is the right balance between protection and productivity? and many more... Knowledge is power. This insight will be first step to aligning your technology with your business goals.

Absolutely , its important to know your pain points, expectation as well as have some weightage & priorities attached to them. For each business outcome expected, its critical to trace the connection back to technology stack needed. Often, we will find that there are many commonalities and hence the Tech architecture does not need to be as Complex as we think or as we often end up making it. This simulation should be iterative and continously done over time.

It's important to identify that one outcome that the organisation seeks to achieve via the automation/ transformation initiative because usually there is more than one problem that one targets to resolve and in the course of implementation, when there are conflicting priorities, there is no guiding North star and the objectives become fluid, thereby diluting the original (main) objective with which the project was initially kicked off.

Having a clear vision of what you want to achieve is crucial. Technology is an enabler for the business but must be accompanied by people and process. Do an in-depth gap analysis to understand where you are before trying to define where you’ll want to be and pave the way with clear achievable goals. Measure, monitor, and adjust as needed. Take the calculated risks when possible.

In addition to identifying gaps, also develop an understanding of which of those gaps are identified as "Must Have, "Would Be Nice", and "Do We Really Need This". Focusing time and energy on the items that are an absolute must helps to ensure that the final solution will actually be utilized. Rather than spending time and money on solutions that will never see the light of day, ensure that issues are being resolved. No one likes to spend time or money chasing solutions that are destined to fail.

It is important to identify the integration points for both upstream and downstream applications. There may be situations when integrations (API) aren't available or may be available at a future date, then the only solution is to apply some stop-gap solution and proceed with the implementation. In such scenarios, it's imperative to keep track of such gaps, so that they can be addresses as and when the proper solution/ integrations are available for a seamless end to end solution.

I have seen organizations trying to overfit or find perfect solutions to the prioritized gaps identified in the above step and thereby creating very complex solutions to develop, deploy and adopt. The best solutions are the one which are simple to adopt, generates a positive ROI and solves a high priority business problem.

I have seen many organizations deploying best of the breed solutions but not generating significant value over time. The fundamental problem is not generating insights and improvising on the implementation as part of the regular monitoring process.

As a technologist and business manager, I've seen the transformative power of tools like SAP, consistently helping organizations exceed business objectives in my past roles and current role. In today's rapidly evolving landscape, concurrent investment in both human capital and technology is crucial. This dual approach is essential for harnessing the potential of AI and ML, driving innovation, enhancing efficiency, and maintaining competitiveness. The synergy between technology and business operations is not just a trend; it's a strategic imperative for sustainable growth and success in the digital age.

IT teams must first of all be seen as partner and earn Businss Trust. This will be possible by delivering reliable services, support Business goals and vision. These days Technology is embedded in all aspects of Business Operations. In addition, more and more SaaS providers are offering many solutions that are more and more easier to integrate with APIs. So IT must also work hard to demonstrate their capabilities to be seen as Trusted Technology advisor, a reliable Partner to deliver Technology initiatives and Services.

A very large FMCG organization was implementing CRM and Analytics across the organization. The idea was to enable the field force and generate insights to shorten the decision making and launch new products and offers faster than the competitors. They made three mistakes: 1. They tried to do everything with the software solution, even trying to solve behavioral issues using this solution, making it a very complex solution to implement. 2. The Project management team didn't have good technology background as a result they were not aware of the limitations of the tech solutions and became very risk averse. 3. The scope of the projects kept on increasing without rebaselining the ROI.