| 1. |
Don’t rush into developing the
strategy until you understand what is going on in the company.
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take time to talk to business and IT
managers.
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understand the current company organisation
and personalities. Find out who the thought leaders are (you might be surprised
who these people are!).
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understand the company decision-making
processes (both formal and informal).
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understand the company strategy and
tactical plans - and not just from the written documents because they may just
have been dredged out of the same dusty cupboard referred to above. Find
out what is really going on, and the range of possibilities about what may happen
in the future.
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understand the current IT environment,
and its strengths and weaknesses.
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| 2. |
Understand the key decision points that
are likely to occur as the business moves forward. All of these decision
points will have an impact upon the strategy, and you need to ensure that you
allow for this possible impact.
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| 3. |
Understand the business and IT environment
that surrounds the company. For example, who else is operating in the same
sphere; what are they doing, and what are their plans? What opportunities
for the future does all this offer?
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| 4. |
Prepare a first cut of the requirements
for IT as the business moves forward. What can you see as innovative uses
for IT? Be bold - you are moving towards a straw-man strategy and you should
be seeking to include as many ideas as possible. For example, what are the
opportunities for sharing commodity IT with other companies? Challenge how
much competitive advantage is really gained from most use of IT.
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| 5. |
Develop a straw-man of the ebusiness
strategy, overlaid on the key business decision points. This should show
the alternative usage of IT depending on the outcome of these key decision points.
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| 6. |
For each IT alternative contained in
your straw-man prepare an estimate of costs, manpower implications and risks.
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| 7. |
Draw up a road-map (or a series of road-maps)
that shows how the ebusiness strategy would unfold according to a variety of business
decisions. This will test the robustness of the strategy, and will clearly
show some of the risks associated with key business decisions.
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| 8. |
This tends to be a good time to formally
present the ebusiness strategy to the rest of the business board. Get them
to contribute and decide which road-maps do not need to be included in the documented
version.
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| 9. |
Agree on who has ownership for the implementation
of the strategy, and for ensuring that it stays in line with the evolving business
needs. Agree the process by which the implementation of the strategy will
be regularly reviewed.
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| 10. |
Taking the feedback from the Board,
complete the documentation of the ebusiness strategy and share it with all stakeholders.
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