Having a strong IT Services plan is essential. It helps you prepare for future needs in a way that is cost-effective and impactful.
As with any other strong plan, a strong IT Services Plan is made up of knowing where you are today, where you want to be in the future, and how you can get there.
Given the many reasons why you need an IT Plan, it’s worth taking a closer look into the elements that make up an effective IT plan.
1. Know Where To Start with Your IT Services Plan
Step 1: Understand IT Services Budget Constraints
There are some key components to consider before even beginning to get into the details of the IT plan. Your business’s budget constraints when it comes to IT services is a good place to start. You can’t develop an effective plan if you don’t know approximately how much you’ll need to invest.
Step 2: Identify Key Stakeholders
You’ll also have to establish who should be involved in the development and implementation of the IT plan. Despite its name, an accurate IT plan should not only be the concern of IT professionals.
Looping in managers or other leaders in the organization is key to the success of the plan.
Step 3: Identify Your Business Goals
Finally, ask yourself “what business goals are being supported?” The IT Services plan is fundamentally about furthering the goals of the business as a whole., so it’s worthwhile to clearly define what those goals are, and how the IT plan is helping to accomplish them.
2. Know Where You Are Today
In thinking about where your business is today, the most important question to answer is “What information does the business need to have?” The answer will largely depend on your industry and specific organization.
However, some of this information may include:
- Internal processes, operations, and policies
- Customer records
- Employee records
- Third-party information
- Vendor information
- Regulatory/legal information
- General information
After you know what kind of information you’re working with, you can turn your attention to the processes and technology that your business already has in place today to support information needs.
It’s important to have a clear understanding of the capabilities of this technology before you move on to thinking about the future.
3. Know Where You Want to be in the Future
Knowing where you want to be in the future comes down to three questions:
- What data do you need to access?
- How are you going to access, modify, and share that data?
- What technical environment (computers, networking equipment, cloud services) do you need to support those operations?
In answering these questions, your overall-business strategy should be your guide. But as you answer these, your IT plan can finally begin to take shape.
4. Know How Your IT Services Plan Can Help You Get There
The steps of developing the IT plan up until now have been the easy part!
Implementing the plan is much more difficult. That’s why you should clearly define and schedule the sequence of implementation.
You’ll also want to perform a cost/benefit analysis to ensure that the IT plan as it stands is as advantageous to the organization as possible. The last element in the IT plan is outlining a clear path for migrating from where you are today to where you want to be.
Without this piece of the puzzle, it’s all for nothing.
Knowing the importance of an IT plan is one thing but developing one is another thing entirely. If your business could use assistance from experienced professionals, 911 PC Help is here to help.
At 911 PC Help, we provide Managed IT Services and IT Project Management Services that are both cost-effective, and highly impactful. We’ll handle the IT side of things so you can focus on doing what you do best. Reach out to us at 415-800-1130 or contact us here for a free consultation to find out how we can take your business to the next level.