Turn Business Goals Into a Technology Plan With IT Strategy Services

An IT strategy is the plan itself: a document that sets out your priorities, technology standards and roadmap. A virtual CIO (vCIO) is an ongoing role in which someone owns that plan, meets with you regularly, manages the budget and vendors and adjusts the plan as the business changes. Some businesses need the plan once and carry it out themselves; others want a vCIO to keep it moving. Many start with a strategy and add a vCIO later.

Most plans look three to five years ahead, with the first year planned in the most detail. Business plans and technology both change, so later years are set out as direction and estimates rather than fixed projects, and they get firmer as you get closer.

A written document covering your business goals and how technology supports them, a summary of where your current technology stands, ranked priorities, the technology standards you'll follow and a roadmap that places each project in order with estimated costs. BCA walks you through it so owners and managers understand the reasoning, not just the list.

The owner or leadership team, for the business goals, and the people who run each department, for what's working and what isn't. If you have an IT person or team, they're involved too. Most of your time goes into a few short conversations; BCA gathers the technical information from your systems directly.

An IT audit looks at the technology you have today and reports what's in good shape and what needs attention. An IT strategy looks ahead: it starts with where the business is going and plans the technology to get there. An audit is often a useful first step, because it gives the strategy an accurate starting point.

A small business doesn't need a long document, but it does benefit from knowing what to replace next, what to standardize on and roughly what the next few years will cost. For a business with a handful of people, the plan can be short. What matters is that technology decisions follow it, instead of being made one emergency at a time.

It depends on the size of your business, how many locations and systems are involved and how settled your business plans are. BCA gives you a timeline before the work starts, so you know when to expect the finished plan.