The Eight Burning IT Questions
Some time ago I was asked to set up a strategic road map for IT back then I didn't know where to turn or how to construct such a plan. In researching items for that document a common theme of questions emerged! (Don't worry if you want to skip to the end, they are there!)
Let me put this into some context - The plan was for IT in a large retailer with many systems and many processes needing updating and this could only be fixed with IT. For the point of this conversation, let's focus on retail in general.
During the past decade, in particular, last 5 years, the retail industry experienced significant continuous and discontinuous changes in areas such as environment, technology, increasing competition, fluctuations in the global economy and an unprecedented change in customer expectations brought on by globalisation.
Information technology revolutionised the retail industry and resulted in new retailing formats and managing customers in the 1980s. This revolution is still continuing today and challenges the traditional ways of customer management. Customers have moved from taking retail visits for shopping, to expecting retail visits to be an experience and entertainment. That is if they actually visit a physical location!
Simply as retailers and service providers, we must meet their demands.
This is where the role of Information Technology in retailing, is now further expanding to customer acquisition and retention programmes. This is achieved by using data resources to improve customer experiences and business practices. In this context, the most important question we need to answer is;
How can integrated Information Technology, as crucial technological support, result in the optimisation of retail costs and serve as a source sales allowing competitive advantage?
In other words, how can we bring efficiencies to increase productivity and reduce costs, with a common strategic information technology road map across the entire business?
In the last five years the effects of environmental pressure, globalisation and advancement in technologies, along with customer attitude towards these changes have resulted in breaking the traditional retailing style. Small shops started to lose customers to larger corporate because of their increased marketing, increased digital marketing, increased information technology spending, with the end game of streamlining their productivity.
I.T. has become a strategic tool to understand consumer needs, communicate to individual customers, plan for promotional campaigns and integrate the entire retail supply chain. However, we are all still dealing with the challenges involved in implementing such IT solutions, which can help cope with market expectations and allow the business to remain competitive now and into the future.
Back to the questions! In authoring that first road map some time ago,I came across a very thought-provoking article by McKinsey and Co. that asks eight simple questions:
1. How will IT change the basis of competition in our industry?
2. What will it take to exceed our customers' expectations in a digital world?
3. Does our business plan, reflect the full potential of technology to improve our performance?
4. Is our portfolio of technology aligned with opportunities and threats?
5. How will IT improve our operations and strategic agility?
6. Do we have the capabilities required to deliver value from IT?
7. Who is accountable for IT and how do we hold them to account?
8. Are we making the most of our technology story?
I found by answering these, the roadmap and plan came together much more easily. These questions that helped back then are still very relevant today. If your struggling with your plan, perhaps they may be of use to you?