Defining IT Strategic Objectives

In reference to the brisk change in the information technology systems, IT strategy is where the organization defines its long term plans to achieve the goals it has set. In order to make an effective and efficient IT strategic plan it must be aligned with the strategies of the business. IT strategy is a complete process in which the success is achieved after going through many ups and downs. The IT strategy helps create value of the business and helps increase the return on IT investment (Thorn, 2011).

As the technology tends to play a vital role in the businesses of today, it has helped the people, process and the technology to work together and add more value and benefits to the organizations with a proper IT strategy plan. IT strategy must be developed while keeping all the technological factors under due consideration. The IT strategy should be flexible enough to adapt to the changes within the organization such as that of business priorities, available skill sets, budgetary constraints, bottleneck resources and an adaptation to new technologies. The strategy must definitely be aligned keeping into consideration the real goals and objectives of the organization.

The IT system of EPS may be enhanced and idealized by making the following changes in the IT strategy (Hall, 2010):

  • Unified communications must be carried out throughout the business, so the message can be clearly perceived at both ends from the sender to the receiver, eliminating the ambiguities related to the delivery of the products.
  • Open source free software should be made which can be accessed by all the employees of EPS; it will help the entire workforce to acquire relevant information at an expanded level thus saving them time to carry out business related activities.
  • For smaller businesses such as the EPS it is highly advisable that they adopt the VoIP, which may save them a lot of cost that was first incurred using the direct landlines, and cut down on the cost of overseas calls made.
  • Customer relationship management system can be developed, which will help keep and store the information regarding the customers such as their preferences and habits. It will also help EPS retain their customers, as the customers will not have to go into details of what they want and don’t want, while making their deliveries over and over again.
  • EPS can carry out stronger and more efficient business operations if they acquire business intelligence into their IT system, which will help them with the categorical division of the business departments.
  • EPS can also adopt the video conferencing technology in order to keep a personalized relation with their customers.
  • If EPS gets virtualized, it will help the business to operate many servers at the same time from only one source of hardware.
  •  Many business functions of EPS such as financial matters, the materials, and the human resource management can be efficiently conducted if they adopt the enterprise resource planning system.

These IT strategies of EPS are developed keeping in view the current situation of the company. The EPS already has a good and dependable IT, but just by acquiring these simple and comprehensive strategies, they can efficiently cut down on their costs of delivery and increase their profit margins. These strategies were developed keeping an eye on the three basic tools of IT, which are

 

Social Media:

As social media is a very vast platform, the businesses can use it to deliver their internal and external messages to the customers such as the latest promotions or will just simply let you connect and get closer to the customers (Codrington, 2010).

 

Local and advanced research:

Searching through websites will help you locate your position on the maps and give out information regarding your business. These help the business with what the customers or other people perceive about your business by going through the reviews, it can also make you respond positively regarding criticism (Codrington, 2010).

 

GEO-Tagging:

It is being efficiently used by the companies in order to display their geographic whereabouts. It helps people and communities come together and get recognized (Codrington, 2010).

 

IT Strategic Actions and Issues:

IT strategic action refers to the implementation of the IT strategies that were planned in accordance with the business objectives. However, the business may encounter a number of problems when putting these IT strategies into action and may include the structure and governance of IT, IT investment portfolio, managing emerging IT, IT business sourcing, alignment and performance evaluation.

A strong and a stable IT structure is a must in the business which requires maintenance. A company may at times neglect the maintenance and upgrading of the IT systems in order to save up on its costs. The business may become risky if the information is leaked out through the IT systems due to the lack of good governance and management of the IT systems (Marks, 2011).

IT investment portfolios refer to the amount of measuring the evaluation of investments. Some issues may arise regarding the subject, such as the withdrawal of resources by the manager for consumption, or forming of the investment portfolio may occur emphatically considering the arrival and consumption during the time of the management of resources (R.K., 2010).

To make the business strategies stronger and to strengthen them, the information technology keeps coming up with new and different kinds of innovations in technologies that can produce the best ever desired results if used and implemented properly. As soon as a new innovation sprouts up, the previous one becomes outdated and with the dynamically changing trends it may become difficult for the IT managers to keep up with the latest technologies. It may also at times require large amounts of capital as well as understanding of the new systems that are to be acquired (Khosrow, 2006).

The sourcing of IT means that the company outsources its work related to the information technology such as the computer work or the computer/system programming. A business may outsource its IT work to a third party in order to save on its costs and resources, such as human resource, but may eventually end up with increased costs of its sourcing, by paying more to the outside company where it might have saved costs by utilizing the business’s own resources. They may also at times risk the privacy of their objectives from their competitors and chances are that the valuable information gets leaked out (McClure, 2003).

The strategic alignment of IT means that the IT system should be made and developed in such a way that it is in proper alignment or in accordance with the actual goals and objectives of the business. If the IT system fails to be in alignment with the business objectives, which appear to be a major hurdle, then the IT system is meant to have failed. Aligning of the IT system with the business objectives at times becomes difficult which leads the system astray and instead yields negative effects. Having an immaculate IT system that is not in alignment with the actual goals and objectives of the business has no worth of its own (Coltman, 2015).

In many ways the excessive use of technology has greatly influenced the performance of the workers and the managers. The IT strategy is used to evaluate the performance of the individual employees of the firms and is judged in comparison with the set standards of the system. One of the major drawbacks regarding this matter is when realized that each employee is an individual and shows different behavior and acts differently from one another and so there cannot be just one specific measure in which they can be evaluated, and the actual performance or productivity may not be calculated  (Sullivan, 2011).

Due to the rapid changes in the information technology at times it does become difficult to keep up with its management. However, if the system is designed particularly in alignment with the goals and objectives of the business, many fruitful outcomes can be availed which can help the business cut down on its costs and increase the opportunity of gaining higher profit margins, which is usually the ultimate aim of any business.

 

Bibliography

Codrington, G. (2010, July 12). THREE SIMPLE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TOOLS THAT YOU CAN USE TO DRAMATICALLY ENHANCE YOUR BUSINESS. Retrieved May 23, 2015, from tomorrowtodayglobal: http://www.tomorrowtodayglobal.com/

Coltman, T. (2015, February 17). Strategic IT alignment: twenty-five years on. Retrieved May 23, 2015, from palgrave-journals: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/

Hall, K. (2010, October 22). Top 10 IT strategies for smaller businesses. Retrieved May 23, 2015, from computerweekly: http://www.computerweekly.com/

Khosrow, M. (2006). Information Resources Management Association. Retrieved May 23, 2015, from irma-international.org: http://www.irma-international.org/

Marks, N. (2011, June 7). What are the top issues for IT governance? Retrieved May 23, 2015, from normanmarks.wordpress: https://normanmarks.wordpress.com

McClure, P. A. (2003). Sourcing information technology services. In A. McCord, Organizing and managing Information resources on Your campus. Jossey Bass, A Wiley company.

R.K., S. (2010). SOLVING OF INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT PROBLEM. Retrieved May 23, 2015, from scientificfun.kz: http://www.scientificfund.kz/

Sullivan, D. J. (2011, January 31). The Top 50 Problems With Performance Appraisals. Retrieved May 23, 2015, from tlnt.com: http://www.tlnt.com

Thorn, S. (2011, November 22). What does developing an IT Strategy mean? Retrieved May 23, 2015, from blog.opengroup.org: http://blog.opengroup.org/