Use technology to add value to your business (step 5 of 5)

This post is the fifth and final step in a series that sheds light on ensuring that technology adds value to your business.

Step one discussed identifying current, changing and future business realities within your customer base, target market, competitors, business partners, market influences and changing technologies.  Please see May 2010 Archives

Step two speaks to reviewing existing server, workstation, connectivity and peripheral hardware and software to determine if within your existing infrastructure you can increase performance and add value without cutting costs.  For example, if you evaluate how your company uses various software programs, you may find unused features that can improve efficiency.  Please see June 2010 Archives

Step three involves maximizing the benefits from staff, third-party vendors and business partners.  Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the talent and contractual agreements your business can pinpoint gaps or overlaps.  Please see July 2010 Archives

Step four places an emphasis on introducing IT vision and innovation into your organization.  These include the origination of new ideas, their development into working concepts and their implementation.  Please see August 2010 Archives

The final step strives to develop a process for implementing business initiatives to ensure ongoing success.  identify your organizational structure and decision making process for monitoring day to day support, managing information exchange and sharing business ideas with IT.  Define a process for employees to suggest improvements to management.  When you give employees a voice, you foster an atmosphere of innovation.  With a defined process, you will avoid introducing innovation haphazardly.

Establish a steering committee devoted to oversight and management to make sure IT supports business initiatives.  Ultimately both IT and management need to take ownership to ensure that IT adds value to your business.  Management provides insight into changing business realities and IT introduces technical innovation and vision to support those realities.  Find the balance within your company to ensure that IT always adds value to your business.