Information Technology Strategy Three Misconceptions

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

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Introduction

Information Technology (IT) Strategy refers to an extensive plan that is normally relied on by IT staff to steer their institutions towards success. The main driving reason for its introduction is to ascertain a formidable and a clear understanding between IT venturing proposals, along with the company’s general plans, aims, as well as missions. During the IT strategy implementation process, a company might be vulnerable to three key misconceptions regarding its IT plan. Experts have gone further to identify these as: solely creating an IT strategy from a comprehensive assessment of corporate policies and plans; exceptionally dominating an IT plan by an inclination to describe the desired operational systems; and the certainty that an organizational IT plan is ideal if its implementation is precisely tailored on a distinctive methodology.

Though the misconceptions seem positive, they are equally faulty, thus creating the uncertainty. However, espousing an assertive policy to address the misconceptions may result in an underprovided IT plan, or an irrelevant concept when contrasted to the desired organizational objectives. The paper aspires to present a comprehensively researched documentary on the three key misconceptions associated with IT strategies, by reviewing the most relevant resources on the topic, before concluding with a restatement of the entire article.

Information Technology Strategy: Three Misconceptions

Overview

An IT plan should integrate all the aspects of technological integration, which encompasses expenditure and human resource management, both software along with hardware administration, risk as well as merchandise management among other essential reflections within the commercial IT setting. According to by Kopp (2013), implementing an IT policy obligates a stable IT management; which entails the Chief Information Officer (CIO), alongside the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to consult with commercial, resources, and policy departments, besides other fundamental units within the company. Most companies tend to standardize their IT plans in a printed manuscript or neutral scorecard policy map. However, the strategy as well as its formal duplicate needs to be elastic enough to the adjustments given the need to accommodate the prevailing institutional conditions and commercial ideals, budgetary limits, accessible know-how and prime competencies, emerging technologies together with a mounting awareness on client tastes and commercial goals.

Adopting an appropriate IT plan might prove decisive as it permits a company to either interpret its IT policy wrongly or moderately appropriate and hence, concerns the threat that vital institutional funds might be misallocated. Part or most of the funds and endeavors may never be dedicated to enhancing tactically decisive aspects. This threat though exhibits no affiliation with how duly a corporate implements the preferred IT concepts (Glaser, 2006). Observing time in terms of budgeting and distinction of weakening assets in case an irrelevant course is being pursued. In this case, the company will eventually be a casualty of the three established IT strategy misconceptions; which includes deriving the IT strategy, interest on application systems, and IT plan methodologies.

Deriving the IT Strategy

The IT strategy is usually stipulated in reflection of a company’s primary strategy, for instance, in case the institution is endeavoring to adjust patient wellbeing, then its IT approach might be derived on operational systems involving Computerized Practitioner Order Entry (CPOE), fault detectors, along with electronic remedial management data. The company aspires to progress client service, and then its IT plan may prioritize applications involving patient portals, along with modern healthcare preparation systems. This strategy derivation concept relies on a basic presumption that once the institutional strategy is well-known, it can be utilized to create the IT plan. However, this strategy development approach might be restricted by its inability to integrate the other three aspects of thought, which may assist with the explanation of IT plan. An IT plan can be tailored on persistent adjustment of basic courses along with statistical organization; manipulated by appraising the purpose of emerging IT provisions, as reflected by evaluating strategic trajectories as noted by Glaser (2006).

IT planning on core activities and data management

There exist a marginal variety of fundamental operational procedures as well as information administrative roles, which are critical for the successful as well as appropriate organizational performance. For a medical facility, these courses may range from equal access to treatment, approving assessment alongside procedures, besides overseeing the income cycle. In a hotel, such courses may entail menu proposal, food processing, and catering. This kind of reasoning obligates the company to identify and outline its key operational procedures along with information administration necessities. The company appraises the impact of such procedures and afterwards formulates a strategy to adjust them.

According to Pant & Hsu (1995), it also outlines the main information lapses, establishes the ridge between the prevailing concepts and its requirements, before adopting a strategy to bridge them. The concepts will particularly reflect the IT agenda, and should be tailored on the company’s formal plans, though this is not mandatory. There might be persistent attempts to adjust the procedures irrespective of the institutional tactical plan preferences. For instance, a company may annually conduct programs deliberated to marginalize expenditure or enhance service. Hence, the IT plan is partially steered by a persistent annual dedication to develop the key performance procedures, apart from embracing fundamental information management necessities.

New information technologies and IT strategies

This concept entails verifying the latest IT potencies that can persuade the corporate to contemplate modern tactics or extensively change the prevailing policies to its plans. For instance, wireless alternatives may persuade the company to review applications which were initially ineffective due to lack of ideal options to embrace the interests of the itinerant worker as reported by Kopp (2013). For instance, remedial administration mechanisms can contemporarily be applied at the patient’s convenience, as opposed to obligating providers to go back to the central operational base to record prescriptions. The approach allows the corporate to evaluate emerging mechanisms as well as the latest technologies, besides verifying their impacts in terms adjusting strategies and the basic courses. For instance, mechanisms, which facilitate the information flow between a practitioner and a patient via the Internet, may as well permit the company to consider modern alternatives of care dispensations to the recurrently ill patient. Whereas, focusing on modern technologies in the context of institutional interest might speed up the determination to venture in the latest technological alternatives.

Strategic trajectories and IT concepts

Institutional and IT approaches often exhibits a preset duration horizon as well as scope.

Such concepts may prolong between two and three years in the prospect, highlighting the imminent types of programs to be espoused within that phase, besides evaluating the probable future initiatives. There might also be a consideration to integrate decision aid for a computerized expert chronological entry application. The resolution support may clarify drug-drug alongside the drug-lab test exchanges (Pant & Hsu, 1995). Responding to the trajectory inquiries for resolution aid means that a client’s genetic pattern will ultimately be considered for the decision aid concept, since genetic formation poses a very essential impact on a patients’ prescription attitude. The trajectory dialogue might particularly be tabled on the relevant IT applications, and the companies prevailing condition with a vision of its prospective outlook. For instance, the outlook of a company with distinctive patient service will prioritize the necessity to introduce operational systems that allows clients to privately arrange for their appointments. The tactical trajectory review is quite straightforward and might be quite tentative in reflection of the prospect, which can as well persuade the organization to skip its review, though such discussions may help in establishing programs, which can be adopted for the immediate future to progress skills in addition to information access.

Focus on applications

Various IT strategy endeavors tend to embrace the growth on application plan as the result, thus making the accomplishment of the IT concept review, an adoption of systems involving the electronic healthcare record, client administration mechanisms, alongside medical laboratory applications, which are required to advance the main corporate strategies. Nevertheless, the application acquirement is part of the broader provisions of IT plan benefits; the application contemplation will often be prolonged even after an inventory accomplishment, to integrate other important strategic deliberations such as sourcing, application uniformity and acquisition (Glaser, 2006).

Infrastructure issues and statistical strategies

Infrastructure encompasses the institutions IT framework, involving operating systems along with networks; besides an ideal design to guarantee that the framework accomplishes the targeted goals. Infrastructural necessities may range from the tactical discussion process, and a company aspiring to expand its operations to societal physicians might be inclined towards providing affordable and safe network connections. As noted by Pant & Hsu, (1995), companies basing their fundamental emphasis on medical communication databases should ascertain that the intense dependency on their infrastructure, such as automated professional order entry mechanisms, may not accidentally fluctuate or seize. The IT concept contemplation must further address the expansion of wider infrastructure potencies and characteristics. Such as enabling residential access, forming recommendations to direct medical resolutions, and allowing the sharing of a set of consistently updated information. Characteristics also concern the wider aspects of infrastructure, including dependability, integrality, dexterity, supportability, as well as capability. A company can commence the execution of additional mission-essential mechanisms, and should in the process guarantee high magnitude of dependability for its systems together with infrastructure.

The firm can make the assumption of its entanglement in the surrounding improbability, in order to vest a premium on dexterity. Accordingly, the plan review involves contemplations such as ensuring system reliability and IT agility (Kopp, 2013). Data associated strategies may entail the magnitude of information formalization across the company, liability for information value, as well as stewardship, besides establishment of database control and review mechanisms. Statistical strategy discussions involve the necessity to know healthcare expenditure, enhancing the integration of medical information, finding instant response to epidemics, and easy as well as convenient retrieval of medical data. The plan should collectively stress on injecting new forms of information, and their connotations, identifying the institutional role accountable for sustaining that implication as well as value, combining the prevailing scope of statistics, and outlining technologies applied for administering, reviewing, and reporting information.

IT workforce concerns and governance

IT professions are the forecasters, programmers, besides the computer wizards who routinely administrate as well as enhance the database of a company. The IT plan contemplations may outline the necessity to develop the IT wizard’s skills, including Web designation and medical information mechanism legislations. Companies can opt to venture in IT outsourcing role, given the intent to boost IT influence and acquire exceptional skills. The service briefing of the IT staff might also obligate enhancement. Collectively, IT professions should stress on introducing the latest skills, managing and sourcing the experts, improving the attributes of the IT wizards, ranging from their pioneering, service-oriented, as well as resourceful aspects. However, IT governance entails the procedure, communication linkages, functions, along with boards that a company mandates with making resolutions as well as overseeing the implementation of the decisions, concerning IT assets and initiatives (Glaser, 2006).

These resolutions entail outlining priorities, allocating funds, setting program legislation concepts, and tackling IT deficiencies. The administration IT plan should specifically focus on defining the sharing of liability for making resolutions, the magnitude of such decisions, besides the procedures to be applied while making the resolutions. Determining the functions of the diverse staff members and institutional panels on behalf of IT experts, and involves the board that is charged with monitoring improvements in medical information mechanisms, and the mandate that the unit director should play (Pant & Hsu, 1995). Creating IT-centric institutional procedures for making resolutions, for the various sensitive departments, encompassing IT plan modification, prioritization as well as resource allocation, initiative control, as well as IT designation along with infrastructure administration. Legislating rules and processes that administrate institutional IT reliance, for instance, outlining the guidelines an applicant can use to purchase a new network.

Administrating provisions

As noted by Kopp (2013), governing concepts regards the perceptions or stances that regulate the institutional IT thoughts. These stances might entail a broad scope of the companies IT resources: ranging from the conviction that IT is the ideal initiative towards achieving the organizational goals; the impact of combining different systems, and the management of IT. Generally, the opinions are often acceptable, since they can all be essential, though after a corporate identifies the concepts, it may seems to restrict its view of technology on that opinion, thus eliminating other variety of IT views. Regulating concepts can be obtained from the comprehensive as well as the inadequately tacit concepts regarding insight, deliberations between the institutional executive members, assessing of the staff tactical endeavors, a foundation’s achievements and failures, together with the companies qualities and background which shapes the ground for appraising proposals.

IT concept methodologies

Methodologies might be essential for formulating an effective IT strategy, as it can either make the concepts extensively vibrant, or politically accommodative and inclusive, as well as highly probable to generate a number of required results as reported by Pant & Hsu (1995). Nonetheless, institutions which have a record of IT distinction will opt to progress to a situation where their integration procedure is systematically inapt. For instance, an evaluation of the UK based Earl1 Company, which exhibits a historical merit on IT applications, reported that the firms IT programming procedures often rely on numerous and varying attributes. Therefore, IT strategy should not be an alienated procedure. IT concepts, in combination with its tactical contemplations were conducted as a close component of institutional strategic organizational courses as well as executive conversations. In this institution, the executive never considered conducting a secluded IT negotiation throughout the process of strategy formulation, just as they would conduct independent fiscal or workforce planning, and wellbeing procedures.

IT scheduling should be an extensively comprehensive and intertwined part and parcel of the formal organizational management discussions. Moreover, an IT strategy exhibits neither an onset nor a termination (Kopp, 2013). Usually, the IT development course will commence with the decision making stage in a month’s time, and this might be delivered in a few weeks afterwards. Before being executed sometimes later after collective consultations have been completed and a consensus has been arrived at. In the model, the IT scheduling as well as strategy discussions reportedly never ended as the department is subject to infinite changes, given the need to improve performance and prevail over competition. This is not to imply that a company may not explore the transitionally de-marked courses structured to annually allocate a budget. Instead, it reiterates that the IT tactical discussions are persistent procedures depicting the uninterrupted adjustments within the surrounding, as well as in institutional plans and tactics.

According to Glaser (2006), IT scheduling also encompasses collective or general engagement in resolution processes together with shared enlightenment between IT staff and other corporate departments. IT executive and excellent institutional management of the probable input or nurturing of unique technologies coupled with limits to the incumbent technologies. Organizational leadership ensured that IT leadership understood the business plans, strategies, and constraints. The IT budget and annual tactical plan resulted from sharing analyses of IT opportunities and setting IT priorities. These outcomes suggest that no distinctive method can be solely relied to formulate an IT strategy. Since the IT strategy formulation process involves unceasing number of conversations alongside debates, which ranges from collective studying, conducted across most of the organizations departments and units such as the top executive conferences and succinct discussions within the hallway. The constraints of IT planning models should equally be demonstrated through the organizational surveys, given a bias focus towards the top executive mandate challenges and problems.

Often, such examinations are bound to report top management challenges with the IT strategy derivation to the formal institutional strategy. This connection is challenging due to the various related reasons: ranging from the unclear or imprecise, and volatile commercial strategies. IT openings are often inadequately comprehended, particularly when the institution is incapable of solving diverse priorities of the distinctive departments of the company. These challenges are in most cases not reversible via the organizationally popular choice of methodology. No method, for instance, exhibits the capability to provide an appropriate response to the emerging IT problems, as they obligate professionalism and intelligence, as opposed to experience and conventional evaluations (Pant & Hsu, 1995). Moreover, a vague organizational or commercially derived strategy might be a depiction of the background improbability, and methodologies have potency to either bring or guarantee accomplishment certainty and success. These grounds of uncertainty among other obstacles will limit the adjustment of IT plan, it is almost impossible to find a concept that successfully counteract them.

Discussions

Forming and implementing an IT strategy, which basically commences from a proposal, presents a decisive institutional procedure. This procedure is often bound to be increasingly influential as the tactical requirement of IT amasses. IT plans must usually be tailored on a framework of necessities as pointed out by a company’s formal strategy. But generally, IT is a mechanism where the quality depends with its potency to support institutional initiatives along with activities. Nevertheless, this derivation should not be applied or perceived as the solitary concept for establishing the core IT ventures as reported by Kopp (2013). IT plans might be extensively altered by endeavors to enhance the key organizational procedures as well as data requirements, as the new openings associated to IT, besides a conversation of tactical trajectories. The focus of top and excellent IT concepts normally involves an inventory of systems which obligates adoption, legislation, and execution. Applications involve a situation where the IT concept successfully integrates into the organizational structure.

Conclusion

Even though, the IT plan must often focus past the application specifications, since the related sourcing endeavors, infrastructure aspects, information standardization, leadership along with the manner, in which a company perceives IT are collectively fundamental basics of the IT plan. Tactical scheduling formulas may as well boost the planning course; by injecting a discipline, complexity, besides intelligibility, honesty, and integrity to the procedure. Nonetheless, a formal strategy should be devised through numerous discussions, across various environments, which ought to unceasingly persist. Furthermore, no methodology poses the potency to contain or restore this dynamic, since IT plans are often conducted in the center of limitations, which might range from vague institutional strategy, inapt familiarity with IT impacts, along with the political temperature. It has been proven that no approach can entirely reverse and restore such imperfections. The implementation of IT plan hence is an influential and demanding course, and although there is no hope of its reversal in the near future, it must never be needlessly obstructed by misconceptions.