Six steps to creating a successful IT strategy: A guide for CIOs

In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, the role of the CIO has transcended simply managing IT infrastructure to becoming a pivotal player in enabling business strategy. The IDC IT Strategy Framework provides a structured approach for CIOs to align IT initiatives with business goals, ensuring that technology investments drive organizational success. This article delves into the six steps of delivering a successful IT strategy.

Step 1: Understanding the business

Strategy, goals, and objectives

The foundation of any effective IT strategy lies in understanding business strategy. This involves analyzing the organization’s long-term vision, mission, and goals. IT leaders must understand how the business plans to compete, grow, and create value in the market to align IT initiatives within the company’s broader objectives. This alignment ensures that technology investments and projects directly contribute to achieving business goals, such as market expansion, product innovation, customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and financial performance.

Guiding principles

Recognizing the core principles that drive business decisions is crucial for taking action. These principles directly influence the organization’s culture and strategic moves. For example, if a business prioritizes customer focus, IT must step up by improving digital channels and delivering personalized services. By aligning IT efforts with these guiding principles, you ensure that every action supports the company’s values and strategy, creating a unified push toward business success.

Step 2: Understanding competitors

Competitive analysis

IT leaders must understand the competitive landscape to position their organization for success. This requires evaluating competitors’ strategies; identifying strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities; and leveraging insights from the competitive market analysis team or similar teams within the organization. With this information, IT can craft an IT strategy that gives the company an edge over its competitors.

Understanding the company’s competitive position allows IT leaders to mindfully act to implement technology for competitive advantage. If competitors are using advanced data analytics to gain deeper customer insights, IT would prioritize developing similar or better capabilities. By staying ahead of market trends, the organization remains agile, adaptable, and ready to outperform rivals.

Step 3: Current state analysis of IT

IT landscape assessment

IT leaders must evaluate their current technologies, processes, and capabilities. This means conducting a SWOT analysis to identify IT strengths — like skilled talent, relevant technologies, strong vendor relationships, and rapid development capabilities — and addressing weaknesses such as outdated systems, resource limitations, siloed teams, and resistance to change. By actively assessing the IT landscape, leaders can identify opportunities to drive the business forward and address gaps or current and future deficiencies.

Step 4: Definition of the IT strategy

Key steps in defining the IT strategy

Defining the IT strategy involves aligning it with the business strategy, ensuring that it supports the overall vision, mission, and goals of the organization. This process includes establishing core principles such as agility, scalability, security, and customer centricity. For example, a company aiming for market expansion might focus on developing scalable infrastructure, enabling application localization, and enhancing security measures to support operations in new regions.

Developing the initial IT strategy (straw man)

The initial IT strategy, or “straw man,” should be reviewed with select partners both inside and outside IT. This collaborative approach helps refine the strategy and build alliances, ensuring that it receives support from top management. The strategy should be flexible, allowing for multiple iterations based on feedback from key stakeholders.

Step 5: Gap analysis

Identifying gaps

The gap analysis involves comparing the current state of IT with the desired future state as outlined in the IT strategy. This process identifies discrepancies in capabilities, resources, and processes that could hinder the achievement of business goals.

Prioritizing gaps

Once gaps are identified, it is essential to prioritize them based on their impact on business objectives and the ease of closing these gaps. This helps focus efforts and resources on the most critical areas. A prioritization matrix can be used to rank gaps, highlighting those that require immediate attention versus those that can be addressed over a longer time frame.

Root cause analysis

Understanding the underlying reasons for critical and complex gaps is crucial for driving decisions. Techniques such as the “five whys” method, fishbone diagrams, failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), or value stream mapping can systematically identify the root causes of issues. Addressing these root causes ensures that solutions are effective and sustainable, leading to more permanent improvements and preventing recurring problems.

Step 6: Strategic IT road map

Creating the IT road map

Once the IT strategy is defined and approved, creating an IT road map of strategic initiatives translates the strategy into actionable principles that will guide plans. The road map should include programs, projects, and actions needed to achieve the IT strategy’s goals. It provides a clear path for achieving business objectives through technology initiatives.

Governance and metrics

Establishing a governance structure ensures clear oversight and accountability for the execution of strategic initiatives. Defining metrics to measure success helps track progress and evaluate the impact of the initiatives. For example, metrics for a CRM system might include customer upsell or retention, sales cycle time, and lead conversion rates.

Conclusion

The IDC IT Strategy Framework provides a comprehensive approach for CIOs to develop a business-aligned IT strategy. By following the six steps — understanding the business, analyzing competitors, assessing the current state of IT, defining the IT strategy, conducting a gap analysis, and creating a strategic IT road map — CIOs can ensure that IT initiatives directly support the organization’s strategic objectives. This alignment enhances competitiveness, drives long-term success, and positions IT as a critical enabler of business strategy.

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Daniel Saroff is group vice president of consulting and research at IDC, where he is a senior practitioner in the end-user consulting practice. This practice provides support to boards, business leaders, and technology executives in their efforts to architect, benchmark, and optimize their organization’s information technology. IDC’s end-user consulting practice utilizes our extensive international IT data library, robust research base, and tailored consulting solutions to deliver unique business value through IT acceleration, performance management, cost optimization, and contextualized benchmarking capabilities.

Gerald Johnston, an adjunct research advisor with IDC’s IT Executive Programs (IEP), founded GJ Technology Consulting, LLC, where he assisted global financial institutions and helped launch a UK startup bank. Johnston is an experienced financial services and consulting executive who excels at collaborating across teams to deliver results. Prior to his current role, Johnston led technology delivery for Wells Fargo’s Information Cyber Security, Technology, and Corporate Properties groups, where he and his team modernized the company’s Cyber Threat Fusion Center on behalf of the cybersecurity team. He was selected as a Wells Fargo Global Fellow, whereby he helped a Philippine Micro Finance Bank and its clients in conjunction with Bankers Without Borders.  He is the former CTO of shared services for Wachovia, leading technology for Core Banking, Bank Operations, Finance, Risk, Legal and Marketing business units.