Today’s competitive business landscape drives innovation, and in turn, makes it vital for companies to have the right IT solutions in place so that they can be read for the needs of the future market. There is a rising need to not only plan for IT but to plan for future initiatives and goals strategically.

It is much easier to make smart IT investments when your long-term goals align with your technology spend. Once you have clarity around your business goals, then you can accurately develop an IT roadmap and budget for IT expenses to ensure success.

Where you’re going with your company

Every roadmap contains a thorough analysis of where the company’s IT environment is at currently along with the projection of where you would like your company’s IT environment to be at the end of the roadmap. When the analyses are more thorough, the more organized the roadmap will certainly become. The current state analysis should cover the following:

• System dependencies
• Ongoing IT costs on those expenses
• Operational procedures
• The business expectations of IT
• Performance and age of IT assets
• Application dependencies

This process aims to draw a contrast between where your company is and where you hope to be. From there, you need to identify where your company’s IT environment is lacking and create plans on how to move to the next level.

Steps to follow to build your IT roadmap

1.  Identify your strategic objectives

What is the operational and financial impact you hope to generate? And what are your strategic priorities? Reducing waste and effort is the first initial goal, but you don’t need to limit your thinking.

• What information and tools can help your IT team become more proactive, insightful, and responsive?
• How can you make it easier to do business with your company?
• How can you deliver an improved experience or produce extra value for your customers?

Defining your strategic objectives clearly, and creating plans to achieve them is an essential step to a successful IT strategy.

2. Plan for the future

IT investments that only address higher costs, duplication of effort, and address immediate needs in fewer benefits. Today, customers expect to relate with you through several channels – social media, websites, mobile apps – and they want an experience that is consistent and seamless.

For instance, the increase in affordable connected devices has allowed several companies to use real-time data to optimize resources, track performance, and build strong relationships with their customers. In building your roadmap, consider what you will need to stay competitive over the next 3 to 5years and set your sights on a longer time horizon.

3. Define your priorities and functional needs

Without clearly defined priorities and needs, there is no way you can plan effectively and adequately assess your options. When creating your roadmap, you will want to:

• Prioritized checklist of the steps you need to take
• Identify areas where your existing systems fall short or technology gaps
• Highlight inefficiencies and review your business processes
• Pinpoint the functional capabilities required to improve your processes.

4. Measure the cost

Most technology initiatives can be capital intensive and expensive. The investment requirement can vary depending on the complexity of your needs, the size of your company and industry. Make sure you include a realistic estimate for all the project in your IT roadmap. Also, consider ongoing or additional costs such as subscription fees, infrastructure costs, support fees, and annual maintenance.

5. Create realistic timelines

Making sure that your projects are sufficiently resourced is important to the success of your business, but you can’t handle all of these things at once. Your IT roadmap should be comprising of realistic plan and timeline for your project depending on your priorities, available resources, and the extent of each project.