As you refine your plan for 2023, here are some topics that should be on every technology leader's strategic agenda.
Developing your strategic agenda is always an interesting challenge. Simply making time to focus on the long term and free yourself from the day-to-day challenges of running an effective technology organization requires careful planning and discipline.
Furthermore, taking the vast amount of “noise” coming from inside and outside your organization and bringing it together into a coherent strategy that balances bold goals with a high probability of success is never easy.
As you develop your strategic agenda for the coming months, consider ensuring the following topics are covered:
Talent
Talent is a topic that is probably already on your mind. This is a time of unprecedented challenges for finding and retaining talent , especially in hot areas like technology. While it's obvious to include talent in your strategic planning, there is a risk of being non-specific. Having a strategic priority to “Address the challenges of technology talent” that is little more than a few bromides about attracting and retaining staff is not a strategy, it is an illusion.
Try to identify separate initiatives to attract talent and retain existing talent, and look for unconventional and actionable items beyond just talking to HR. For example, you might consider filling IT roles with internal resources interested in moving into IT, or you might launch or expand an internship program at a local university or trade school. Everyone is recruiting from the same scarce resources, so start laying long-term foundations for approaching talent acquisition.
Talent retention should be a separate topic on your strategic agenda and is an area over which you have more control than the whims of the external market. Consider strategies for identifying your top performers and methods for determining who is at risk of leaving.
Think about what strategic initiatives you can launch that will help retain these individuals . Again, don't be afraid to think unconventionally. Big raises and bonuses may be out of the question. Still, flexible work schedules, which allow individuals to explore “personal projects” or take on new leadership roles, are low-cost programs with significant benefits.
Digital Transformation
Transformation has been a hot topic for years, but it's yet another area where you run the risk of unclear and poorly defined strategic objectives that end up providing more confusion than focused direction as you execute your plan.
Use your business strategy to articulate what you mean by “transformation.” Will your technology group lead the creation of a new net revenue stream , serve new customers and markets, or develop a new asset or business model? Or will you emphasize “digital” more than transformation and focus on using innovative technologies to optimize existing businesses?
If you haven't already had these discussions with your colleagues or leadership, you can use your strategic planning to probe your organization's willingness to transform. If the mere mention of technology-led new business exploration causes consternation among your peers, you will quickly realize that their definition of “digital transformation” may be quite limited.
Likewise, if you're assuming that digital transformation is all about technology and your colleagues expect you to lead the exploration of a new market opportunity, you're better off discovering this disconnect during strategic planning than halfway through project execution. your plan.
ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance)
ESG is an emerging topic at the executive and board level. Demonstrating how technology can contribute to the company's global strategy in this area is a great way to raise the importance and visibility of IT . However, ESG can be a tricky area for technology leaders, who may feel more comfortable dealing with a complex software implementation than diversity or climate change issues.
Ideally, ESG considerations can be integrated with other components of your strategy. For example, social considerations are likely already part of your talent acquisition and retention strategy and can be highlighted as such.
Likewise, when considering your overall technology footprint, you can already take energy consumption into account from a cost perspective. You can also easily integrate the environmental impacts of your technology decisions. Good governance practices must be incorporated in critical areas and integrated into the company in general.
Highlighting your contributions to ESG can start by simply applying an ESG lens to the work you are already doing. In the long term, it is possible to identify the many areas where ESG also offers attractive incentives, ranging from cost reduction, through energy efficiency, to talent benefits, through better recognition and management of your workforce diverse.
The “Left Field” element
You will have a solid, well-thought-out strategic plan with topics like the ones above. However, technology organizations must also include a strategic investment in one or two “left field” areas with no clear and immediate financial incentive .
Depending on your organization, this may be an investment in emerging technology. For example, as a commercial real estate company, you can make an initial investment in the metaverse. Outside of technology, maybe invest in an unconventional solution to a conventional problem. For example, an experiment with bots or RPA technology can solve staff shortages in a specific area. At the same time, an AI-based assistant can alleviate some of the burden on frontline employees.
Including experimental initiatives does two things. First, it shows that your organization is pushing the limits of what is possible today and trying to meet real-world challenges through technology. Second, it helps you triangulate how much experimentation, risk, and future-oriented thinking your organization expects in a low-risk way.
These conversations are often tense, as pushing too hard can cause organizational resistance, but not being bold enough can underestimate your value as a leader. Specifically, presenting these elements of your strategy as “out of the ordinary” will open up the potential for comments and feedback in a non-threatening way.
With elements of the aforementioned areas as pillars of your technology strategy, you must quickly identify pragmatic initiatives that help address these areas today, while also defining future-focused initiatives that advance the organization's overall agenda.
