IT Strategy
Modernizing your business to prepare for analytics and other technology advances
Some organizations have been operating the same way for years, and it works. For now. But while those businesses are maintaining the status quo, others are evolving; they’re changing the way they think, embracing new technologies and modifying work habits to meet new demands. They're developing gameplans to deal with the volume, velocity and variety of a big data world.
An IT strategy is an effort to modernize your business. It's the process of making small changes in the way you work so you can prepare for new technologies storming the corporate world – technologies such as analytics, Hadoop and cloud computing.
Creating a more modern strategy isn’t a single project or even a single philosophy. It’s changing your culture. Creating a more agile process to manage your technology investments. And finding a way to make sense of bigger, streaming data.
Why you should have an IT strategy
The IT world is notoriously dynamic and fluid. This is truer today than at any time in the last few decades. Advances in data storage and data processing from big data solutions such as Hadoop and cloud computing are changing the way you make decisions about every aspect of your operation.
And this is where a coherent strategy for IT comes in. By establishing a strategy, your business will be better prepared for the future. You’ll commit to embracing new ways of working, so all your teams – particularly business and IT – are on the same page.
This cross-enterprise collaboration can significantly boost your organization’s heath and productivity. Business solves problems with cloud-based solutions or third-party applications such as SaaS, while IT supports those efforts by building data management or analytics into the overall process. It’s a formalized, effective partnership that impacts your entire organization.
While you don’t have to implement new technology right away, an IT strategy is a willingness to be open to it; an understanding that big data, Hadoop and other innovations are knocking at your door. With the right strategy in place, you’ll be ready to answer.
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More on IT Strategy for Analytics
Keys to a successful plan
- Data management. When your data is high-quality and well-managed, you’re better prepared to make business decisions and implement analytics.
- DevOps. Encouraging developers and IT to collaborate on projects leads to bigger, better thinking in your organization. It’s a culture you should foster.
- New technologies. Have you embraced grid computing, cloud computing, in-memory processing or data visualization? They’re invaluable, because they can help you make the most of the data you already have. And they only brush the surface of what’s coming down the pipeline.
How to get started: 3 steps
What needs to happen to establish a solid IT strategy in your organization? It may be easier than you think:
- Evolve your mindset. Approach knowledge in a different way. Become open to new ideas and encourage creativity in the IT process. Enable your CIO to become less of a rule-enforcer and more of a guide. When you start thinking differently, big changes can happen.
- Establish processes. It’s time to take action and put your new mindset into practice. Biggest priority? Make sure business and IT are aligned. Create an advisory board or steering team. Evaluate each stage of the analytic lifecycle and make incremental changes when you can.
- Leverage your data sets. Now the technology comes into play. Do you have the right infrastructure in place to handle large amounts of data, or to make sure the data you have is high quality? If not, take small steps to upgrade to newer technologies. Improve your processing speeds, enable analytics and implement the right processes to support bold decisions. It may be the best thing you’ll do for your business.
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