Introduction

As IT becomes an increasingly important business tool for organisations of all sizes, it is vital to ensure that your business gets the most out of any system it introduces. In order to achieve this, you need to make sure that the IT system you choose supports your business and adds value to it.

This guide will describe how to align IT with your business objectives, develop an IT strategy to meet your requirements and ensure that the IT solutions you implement deliver real benefits to your business. It will also discuss how to measure the success of the system implementation.

Understanding your business

The IT function in every business is about capturing, processing, storing and distributing information or data. Therefore the first principle of aligning IT with business is to have a clear understanding of your business itself. Without this it's difficult to ensure that you'll get the most out of any IT investment that you make. For more information, see our guide on how to prepare a business plan.

Before you consider investing in IT solutions, you need to identify the business objectives you have set out in your business plan.

For example, you may want to:

• improve customer service and communicate with customers and suppliers more effectively
• cut your costs and streamline your business' operations
• increase staff productivity
• respond to change more quickly
• improve the way you manage, share and use knowledge in your business

Once you're clear what your objectives are, you can then decide how technology can help you achieve them.

As well as considering the overall objectives of your business, you also need to consider what you do, and how you do it. The key factors to take into account are:

• organisation charts
• responsibilities
• formal and informal processes
• markets
• products
• key customers
• key suppliers
• key business partners

Another way in which you can understand your business better is to establish the ways in which it is likely to change as a result of either internal or external factors, such as:

• legislation
• regulation
• business initiatives
• technology initiatives
• customer-driven change
• supplier-driven change

It is important to understand how these changes are likely to impact upon the business and, in turn, how IT will support such changes. This will ensure that any IT investment you make now is capable of supporting your business and its operations in the longer term.