Evaluation of IT strategy

Evaluation of an IT strategy mainly concerns the analysis and assessment at the level of the company’s strategic goals – it should determine whether the goals included in the strategy have been achieved. The subject of strategic evaluations may also be the analysis and assessment of the accuracy of the general directions of technology development (set at the planning stage) and their impact on the company’s business strategy. One of the important aspects of strategic evaluation should also be the verification of the adopted strategy in relation to the current and anticipated socio-economic situation (company’s macroeconomic environment).

Evaluation of an IT technology strategy should primarily answer the following questions:

• Have the right goals been chosen for the company’s IT development program?
• Were resources properly selected and allocated?
• Were the goals set for the IT technology development strategy achieved?

Evaluation of the IT technology strategy is a type of on-going evaluation, consisting in the analysis and evaluation of the current effects of strategic activities in the area of technology and innovation implemented in the company and the formulation of recommendations useful from the point of view of implementing a given IT technology development program in the company. Evaluation of the IT strategy is thus aimed at improving the quality of a given technology development program (i.e. its effectiveness, efficiency, relevance and adequacy). It is worth noting that the evaluation of the strategy should also refer to the negative effects of the initiatives taken and consider the effects of abandoning certain activities (e.g. analysis of the opportunity cost of engaging the company’s personnel and technical resources).

In practice, a member of the company’s management should be responsible for evaluating the technology strategy, as the conclusions and recommendations from this evaluation will be dedicated to the company’s management. The evaluation itself may take place, for example, in the form of cyclical review meetings (e.g. with persons responsible for the implementation of specific tasks resulting from the technology development strategy or managers of technology transfer projects). In addition, monitoring of IT strategy implementation indicators should be ensured (e.g. the level of maintenance and operating costs after the implementation of a group of IT technologies, the number of IT employees, etc.).

The data collected and analyzed as part of the strategy evaluation and recommendations for the next period of the company’s technological development program should be collected and presented in periodic reports (e.g. quarterly). At the same time, identified errors and aspects requiring quick response should be presented in the mode of ongoing consultations as part of organized meetings of the company’s management or a dedicated organizational unit (e.g. strategy implementation team).

As part of INNOKREA, we develop our own product silentclicks.com (a specialist tool for sales in the company), which is part of our business strategy. The project has been developed by us for over 6 years. As part of monitoring this project, we regularly evaluate our IT technology strategy. During this period, we made a two-time strategic change – we completely replaced the frontend technologies of this product. These decisions were made, inter alia, based on the analysis of the macroeconomic environment of our company and the development opportunities we have observed.