The actionable guide for driving organizational innovation through better IT strategy With rare insight, expert technology strategist Peter High emphasizes the acute need for IT strategy to be developed not in a vacuum, but in concert with the broader organizational strategy. This approach focuses the development of technology tools and strategies in a way that is comprehensive in nature and designed with the concept of value in mind. The role of CIO is no longer "just" to manage IT strategy—instead, the successful executive will be firmly in tune with corporate strategy and a driver of a technology strategy that is woven into overall business objectives at the enterprise and business unit levels. High makes use of case examples from leading companies to illustrate the various ways that IT infrastructure strategy can be developed, not just to fall in line with business strategy, but to actually drive that strategy in a meaningful way. His ideas are designed to provide real, actionable steps for CIOs that both increase the executive's value to the organization and unite business and IT in a manner that produces highly-successful outcomes. Formulate clearer and better IT strategic plans Weave IT strategy into business strategy at the corporate and business unit levels Craft an infrastructure that aligns with C-suite strategy Close the gap that exists between IT leaders and business leaders While function, innovation, and design remain key elements to the development and management of IT infrastructure and operations, CIOs must now think beyond their primary purview and recognize the value their strategies and initiatives will create for the organization. With Implementing World Class IT Strategy, the roadmap to strategic IT excellence awaits.

Describes the principles and methodologies for crafting and executing a successful business-aligned IT strategy to provide businesses with value delivery.

World Class IT Technology is all around us. It is so pervasive in our daily lives that we may not even recognize when we interact with it. Despite this fact, many companies have yet to leverage information technology as a strategic weapon. What then is an information technology executive to do in order to raise the prominence of his or her department? In World Class IT, recognized expert in IT strategy Peter High reveals the essential principles IT executives must follow and the order in which they should follow them whether they are at the helm of a high-performing department or one in need of great improvement. Principle 1: Recruit, train, and retain World Class IT people Principle 2: Build and maintain a robust IT infrastructure Principle 3: Manage projects and portfolios effectively Principle 4: Ensure partnerships within the IT department and with the business Principle 5: Develop a collaborative relationship with external partners The principles and associated subprinciples and metrics introduced in World Class IT have been used by IT and business executives alike at many Global 1000 companies to monitor and improve IT's performance. Those principles pertain as much to the leaders of IT as they do to those striving to emulate them.

Where do you begin when you need to create a transformative IT Strategy? This book steps you through all the necessary considerations for evaluating your current state and planning for a high-performing future state. IT STRATEGY features interviews with over one dozen CIOs and IT executives. It walks readers through the process from a blank whiteboard to a comprehensive IT Strategy. Created to be a broad-reaching reference manual, IT STRATEGY introduces a thought-provoking 3-D framework to empower any leader to develop a sound IT Strategy. The author presents technical and non-technical topics to enable readers to develop a roadmap to their desired future state. A spotlight is focused on such core topics as data, technology, security, customer experience, IT governance, organizational change management, culture and talent management. To ensure executives buy into your strategy, the book repeatedly reminds readers to align IT strategic planning to foundational business strategic planning and central business key performance measures. Guidelines for creating a compelling, winning executive presentation round out the book's completeness. Jim Maholic is an award-winning author with over 25 years as an IT strategist. He has consulted with many of the largest and most prestigious companies in North and South America. His career includes two stints as a CIO and he has held leadership positions with global consulting and technology firms.

Thinking strategically is what separates managers and leaders. Learn the fundamentals about how to create winning strategy and lead your team to deliver it. From understanding what strategy can do for you, through to creating a strategy and engaging others with strategy, this book offers practical guidance and expert tips. It is peppered with punchy, memorable examples from real leaders winning (and losing) with real world strategies. It can be read as a whole or you can dip into the easy-to-read, bite-size sections as and when you need to deal with a particular issue. The structure has been specially designed to make sections quick and easy to use – you’ll find yourself referring back to them again and again.

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for—overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.

You think you have a winning strategy. But do you? Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you aim to be big or fast? Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win—or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether? In a business environment that is changing faster and becoming more uncertain and complex almost by the day, it’s never been more important—or more difficult—to choose the right approach to strategy. In this book, The Boston Consulting Group’s Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment—how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right. They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories—Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable—depending on the extent of predictability, malleability, and harshness. In-depth explanations of each of these approaches will provide critical insight to help you match your approach to strategy to your environment, determine when and how to execute each one, and avoid a potentially fatal mismatch. Addressing your most pressing strategic challenges, you’ll be able to answer questions such as: • What replaces planning when the annual cycle is obsolete? • When can we—and when should we—shape the game to our advantage? • How do we simultaneously implement different strategic approaches for different business units? • How do we manage the inherent contradictions in formulating and executing different strategies across multiple businesses and geographies? Until now, no book brings it all together and offers a practical tool for understanding which strategic approach to apply. Get started today.