Is your IT team falling into these 5 money-wasting traps?

By Michael Kedik

At a time when many businesses are operating with a flat—or even decreasing—IT budget, smart IT departments try to get the most impact from every dollar. As a strategic technology executive, I advise the organizations I work with to avoid the following traps:

1. Lack of leadership and direction. CIOs are expensive and in short supply. As it can take months or years to fill a vacant tech leadership position, many companies don’t have proper IT leadership and skillsets on their staff to lead and develop the team.
2. Misaligned objectives. 47% of business leaders feel that their goals are unsupported by IT. ¹ When IT and business goals are aligned, your company can focus on technology initiatives and investments that make your business more successful.
3. Focused on short-term fixes. More than 90% of IT resources and time are focused on react and maintain activities, leaving little or no time devoted to business improvement or transformation work.² You must get past just putting out fires to focus on transformational change.
4. Poorly defined roadmap. 84% of IT departments claim their IT strategies are less than adequate.¹ Get real results from your IT strategy and investments by identifying the gaps in what you’re doing now and what you need for the future and executing plans to fill those gaps.
5. Expecting technology to be the silver bullet. With security concerns and an ever-evolving technology landscape, it’s tempting to think they’ve just rolled out the answer to your problems. Investing in technology without a plan that takes into consideration other elements like your people and processes, won’t get you far.

Many companies trying to move past these pitfalls are finding success through IT leadership on a fractional basis. A virtual CIO (vCIO) is a way to get a skilled, experienced leader that meets your budget and timeline. Using a vCIO for IT strategy and  planning can help you evolve your IT activities from reactive into proactive, for IT that drives improved business outcomes.

¹ Info-Tech Research Group
² Gartner