You’ve got a business plan. Do you have an IT Strategy?

A business plan or strategy articulates business goals while providing guidelines on how to actualise those goals. An IT strategy is similar, except that its major focus is the application of IT tools and techniques.

What both have in common, however, is that they work for the overall good of a business. Ideally, a good business plan should incorporate efficient business IT support as part of an optimal IT strategy.

Read on to discover seven reasons why an IT strategy is such an important part of your business.

What is an IT Strategy?

An IT strategy is a detailed plan that comprehensively articulates the various ways a business will utilise technology in its everyday operations in order to help it achieve its objectives or goals.

Like a business strategy, an IT strategy should be captured in a formal document that clearly identifies and analyses all the factors that can influence the organisation's investment in and utilisation of technology.

Whatever the kind of documentation, the strategy should not be rigid but flexible enough to be adjusted and allow for changes that can impact your business such as technological innovation, the availability of technological skills, budget constraints, new conditions in the market, and more.

Most importantly, an efficient IT strategy should be comprehensive or holistic. This means that it should encompass all aspects of technology management necessary for a business, from employee management to customer management, hardware and software management to cost management, vendor management, risk management, and more.

7 reasons why every serious business needs a sound IT strategy

As an office manager, a major part of your role is to ensure that you and other employees are using the most appropriate tools to enable the business to achieve its overall goals. Here are some of the reasons businesses need an optimal IT strategy:

1. Complement human effort

A strong business IT support service for your business will help add an extra dimension to the efforts of your employees. In these days of artificial intelligence and machine learning, forward-thinking companies know that a combination of human labour and computers is the way forward when it comes to achieving greater efficiency in business operations.

2. Save time, energy, and money

Most business environments are fast-paced, which means time can be a very important variable. In fact, one-third of small business owners prioritise timesaving. And the good news is that with a robust IT strategy, a business can save significant time, energy, and money in its day-to-day operations.

A good way to achieve this is through automation. Business IT support that includes the automation of repetitive day-to-day organisational tasks saves employees the time, energy, and money they would have spent on tedious manual operations.

3. Boost productivity

By increasing employee productivity and efficiency through effective business IT support, businesses can reduce costs, maximise revenues, and benefit from having more funds to grow their business.

Luckily, productivity software can help your business boost its operational efficiency by replacing laborious and costly manual processes. Plus, with the introduction of cloud and mobile technologies, the scope of business productivity software has widened significantly in recent years.

4. Attract a wider audience

The emergence of digital marketing and advertising has offered millions of SMEs the opportunity to reach a wider audience in a more cost-effective way. This would not have been possible in the past because of the significantly higher costs of traditional advertising techniques, which were only possible for firms with larger outlays.

5. Increase profitability

Implementing a sound IT strategy is one way to achieve more profits. From a digital marketing perspective, a company with an efficient online presence can generate more leads and sales conversions, which automatically translate to more revenues.

In addition, leveraging IT tools like automation, AI, ML, and data analytics can also help you to increase output per hour, per job, and per worker – and increased productivity means increased profitability.

6. Enhance employee and customer experience

One of the main functions of business IT support is facilitating seamless, effective, real-time communication among all departments in a business. This is especially necessary post pandemic with the increased adoption of remote working by businesses in the UK and elsewhere.

Customer engagement has also received a big boost with the maturing of digital technologies. Businesses now have access to more tools to help them optimally interface and build community-based and social media relationships with their customers, which brings about increased customer satisfaction, good reviews, and greater brand loyalty.

7. Gives you an edge over competitors

Companies with the most modern, holistic IT strategies are bound to be one step (or even several steps) ahead of their competitors. They also rank higher in employee and customer satisfaction, among others.

Essentially, as new digital technologies continue to emerge at a fast pace, organisations that recognise and embrace them will gain significant competitive advantage.

How Inflection Point can help with your IT strategy

In today’s digital world, an efficient business plan should include a comprehensive IT strategy. Even if you’ve managed to craft a superb business plan and document, it will not do you much good if it has no space for IT adoption.

The success of your business is defined by the way it operates seamlessly in the digital, data-driven world we live in – and if you are an office manager, it is your duty to ensure that your business achieves its KPIs and other goals by benefiting from the right business IT support.

And that’s where we come in! With professional expertise and 24/7 support, Inflection Point is always there for all your IT needs.

Ready to take your IT strategy to a new level?

As an experienced IT support partner, at Inflection Point we are the preferred managed IT service provider for SMEs across the UK, with a special focus on providing managed IT services to London, Bristol, Swindon, Oxford, Cheltenham, and Gloucester.

We are passionate about empowering organisations by elevating their IT. So, if you want to take your business to a brand-new IT level, be sure to speak with Inflection Point today.