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Is your IT department ready for disruption?

June 1, 2021 / 6 min read

Not sure how your IT department is doing? What’s worked in the past doesn’t guarantee future success. If you’re setting IT priorities (and you should be!), here’s how to assess your IT department for the digital future.

New trends in information technology (IT) are disrupting every aspect of business. Each day we hear about things like big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain, internet of things, and machine learning, and in the next few years, there’s a good chance one or more of these technologies will find its way into your organization, if it hasn’t already. No matter what industry you are in, having a forward-thinking IT department with the right skills is more critical than ever. Is your organization ready for the challenges ahead? The best way to find out is through an IT assessment conducted by an experienced third party. The following FAQ will get you started.

What can trigger the need for an assessment?

Common reasons for an IT assessment include:

Worse — competitors may be adopting new technologies that are leapfrogging you and other industry peers.

What’s included in an IT assessment?

An IT assessment is more than a quick look at the organization’s technology — it’s a “three-legged stool” of people, process, and technology.

What are the key steps in an IT assessment?

There are four major steps in an IT assessment:

  1. Determine the goals and project team. Project goals can vary from a simple baseline for comparison against best practices to a detailed assessment. Occasionally, an assessment will have a specific focus such as staffing or how successful your organization is at meeting end-user requests. Once the goals are in place, the project team is selected. In most cases, it’ll be a cross-functional team involving IT, stakeholders, and key users who will help choose who to interview in the assessment, review the observations, consider findings and recommendations, and ensure the project stays on track.
  2. Determine some benchmarks. The next step is to determine benchmarks on tools, staffing, and spending that could include surveys of peer organizations or industry-published metrics.
  3. Prepare a communication plan. The communication plan provides details on the assessment process and how the results will be shared. The plan is shared organization-wide and is critical to ensuring buy-in of participants.
  4. Conduct the assessment and prepare recommendations and a strategic roadmap. The assessment includes items such as document reviews, surveys, interviews with IT staff and stakeholders, peer reviews, and an analysis of industry information for datapoints. The goal is to validate across multiple data sources. The deliverable is a report with recommendations and a strategic roadmap. 

What happens after the assessment?

After the completion of the assessment, there are two important follow-up steps.

Given the importance of IT, many organizations are adopting the same auditing diligence to their technology that they do to their financial statements. 

Every organization, whether a business, educational institution, or government, faces unprecedented digital disruption. IT is no longer an add-on service; it’s deeply rooted in the business and a determining factor for future success. Given the importance of IT, many organizations are adopting the same auditing diligence to their technology that they do to their financial statements. Is yours?

To find out how your organization can secure its digital future, give us a call.


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