A technology strategist develops and maintains strategies related to a company’s information technology structure, assessing current technology, researching competitors, and determining customer needs. They must also consider the company’s budget and operating philosophies, brainstorm ideas, present them to managers, and implement and maintain the chosen strategy. The strategist must also be adaptable to future technological advances and be able to switch to more efficient options if necessary.
A technology strategist is responsible for developing, implementing, and maintaining strategies related to the company’s information technology structure. This is critical to business because the use of technology typically reduces costs and results in greater efficiency and profit. As a technology strategist works, he must coordinate not only with members of management, but also with the company’s customers.
One of the initial tasks of a technology strategist is to assess the current status of the company’s technology. This can include conversations with managers on the information technology team, as well as physically visiting the company’s various centers to assess what is currently in use. The technology strategist also researches what the company’s competitors are doing with technology to determine whether the company is being similarly innovative. As part of this process, the technology strategist may request formal reports of technology-related inventory, technology, and production.
During the research process, a technology strategist also tries to determine what the company’s customers need or want that can be provided or supported with the technology. For example, the strategist might discover that the company’s customers have a strong desire to track shipments. He could take this information to managers in the technology department to develop an order tracking system that customers could access online. The strategist can gather information about the customer’s needs and wants through techniques such as interviews, feedback forms, surveys, and analysis of the type and number of items sold.
What a technology strategist is able to do for a company is largely determined by the company’s budget and operating philosophies. For example, if the company suffered a profit loss in the previous year, it might not be able to allocate as many resources to technology development and technology strategy. Thus, the strategist needs to obtain information about the firm’s current financial status and why the firm plans to allocate resources in a particular way before it can craft an acceptable strategy. This information usually comes from managers in the finance department, in addition to documents such as the company’s mission statement or project proposals.
Once a technology strategist has all the data he needs about the company, its customers, and its competitors, he uses his knowledge of the company’s products, services, market position, and current budget and technology status to brainstorm ideas about how the company could approach the technology. Each strategy developed should clearly show the risks, benefits, resources and opportunities available to the company, so the strategist will spend time getting their ideas across in a presentable form, such as a report or formal presentation.
The next step for a technology strategist is to present his ideas to the company’s managers. During this presentation, the strategist’s job is to ensure that managers understand the pros and cons of each proposed strategy. Ultimately, the strategist does not decide which strategy to pursue, but because his ideas have an enormous influence on the direction managers take, the strategist has a powerful position within the company.
Once the company selects an appropriate technology strategy, the technology strategist moves on to the implementation and maintenance phases of strategy development. At this point, the strategist focuses on purchasing and configuring the company’s technology, as discussed. If something doesn’t work, the strategist needs to troubleshoot and find a solution. He needs to liaise with customers and suppliers to make this work and monitor the results. The strategist can request reports from various departments in the company to assess the effectiveness of the plan.
Technology is constantly evolving, so a big challenge for a technology strategist is that their strategies have to be easily adaptable to future technological advances. This is a conundrum because it is very difficult to predict which technology will emerge or determine at what point any new technology will be truly functional. Later, even after the strategist has developed and implemented a technology strategy, he must always be on the lookout for more efficient options. The strategist plays a key role in helping a company decide when and how to switch from one technology to another, if necessary.
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