As you start planning for success in 2013, be sure to include IT in your plans. When IT is part of your business planning, you can leverage it to gain efficiencies and make sure the proper infrastructure is in place for growing your business. The challenge is that most IT professionals have not been taught to align IT with business goals.
To align your IT team with your business goals, you need to ask yourself and your IT team few questions:
- What are our major business goals for 2013?
- What are the potential barriers to success?
- How can we use IT to help us meet our goals?
- What constraints do we currently have and how can they be addressed?
- What else can our IT team do to help?
Having studied the industry, it is clear to me that IT professionals are not taught to align IT with the goals of the business. So unless you are working with an enlightened IT team, it is your responsibility to bring your IT manager into discussions about business goals and make sure they work with you to identify how IT can help achieve your business goals. And that will greatly increase your potential for success in 2013.
Using CIO Services
One other option is to use CIO services. At large companies, it is the Job of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to act as an interpreter between IT and senior management. The CIO helps to translate the business strategy into IT infrastructure needs. However, small and mid-sized businesses cannot afford a full-time CIO. That is why CIO services can be beneficial for many businesses who only need a CIO for several hours a month, at most.
With CIO Services, you can:
- Feel confident about which IT investments support your business goals * Make better IT choices around which technologies will work for your business (e.g. Salesforce.com vs. SugarCRM) * Understand the total cost of a technology investment
- Get your IT staff to support your business goals
Whether you choose to use CIO services or make IT decisions in-house, just be sure that your IT plans support your business goals for 2013 and beyond.
About Skyriver IT
Our goal at Skyriver IT is to deliver frustration-free IT. We provide small and
midsize companies with the information needed to make better IT and business
decisions. If you would like to discuss how we can help make your IT frustration
free, please feel free to call (858) 812-9322 or visit www.SkyriverIT.com
