The Purpose of Strategic Technology
IT is a bridge to a future competitive state—employee enablement, learning, productivity, enhanced customer experience, and threat mitigation.
According to CompTia, 50% of tech growth worldwide—and the competitive advantage it offers—is the result of emerging technologies such as IoT software and hardware, AR/VR, SaaS+PaaS, robotics, AI, big data, and next-gen security.
IT strategy needs to be a cornerstone of your IT support, management, and cybersecurity. Without it, there is no focus and things will start to fail over time.
That’s why we approach IT in a strategic, proactive, and disciplined way.
Information technology is permeating the value chain at every point, transforming the way value activities are performed and the nature of the linkages among them. It also is affecting competitive scope and reshaping the way products meet buyer needs. These basic effects explain why information technology has acquired strategic significance.
%
CXO’s who feel their IT strategy is inadequate AND do not understand what they should be doing differently.
What Does Strategic IT Mean?
Most IT leaders say they want to be or already are “strategic” and have visions of IT driving business strategy. Unfortunately, too many CXO’s feel like they aren’t.
Executives believe that they get solid financial and business strategies from other functional areas in their companies, but IT is not providing the strategic value needed to leverage new technologies. Most IT leaders and their functions are simply fighting fires day-to-day in a reactionary cycle that prioritizes short-term needs rather than strategic drivers. Pragmatic business owners demand a strategic, practical approach to IT to keep employees productive, their enterprise running, and company data safe.
IT strategy always begins with a business goal and its business value. A specific IT solution is simply a tactical choice to achieve a strategic business objective.
Waident’s Value to CXOs
We approach IT in a strategic, proactive, and disciplined way to develop what we call “Resilient IT.” Resilient IT helps our clients bridge to their desired future state while avoiding daily technology fires or major IT fiascoes along the way.
Resilient IT is driven by:
– a people-first, tech-second mindset,
– a comprehensive understanding of system interdependencies,
– extensive documentation
– systematic preventive testing
– proven troubleshooting protocols and processes
In other words, Resilient IT is focused on the continued strengthening of IT’s value and health with knowledge, discipline, and process.
Keeping Your People Productive
- Technology Analysis & Reporting
- Tracking and upgrades
Keeping Your Enterprise Running
- Cyber Security
- Servers and Dedicated Hardware
- Cloud platforms
- Networks & VPNs
- Network Hardware
- Internet & Dedicated Connectivity
- Manage Backups
Keeping Your Data Safe
- Application Management
- 3rd party vendor management
“They help me think through network and security issues and are very conscious of not throwing around a lot of money for projects. They go over the details of a project so I feel like I understand. But mostly I like not having to think about technology because Waident has it under control.”
Strategic IT Capabilities
Planning
Deliver better and cost-effective services to the business and customers through a high-performing, reliable, and cost-efficient IT environment and procure services with the right quality, at the right price, and with right controls.
Risk Management
Protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information by establishing physical and logical controls. Maintain integrity, availability, and accuracy of business data across business processes.
IT-Business Alignment
Deliver the required business functionality with lower TCO, easy maintainability, and reduced delivery time to meet business needs.
Our Thinking on Strategy
Choosing an MSP: No. 2. Strategic Alignment and POV on IT
Does the MSP share our vision for IT and its purpose? Financial viability is critical for an MSP. Prudent financial management ensures that the proper investments are being made in the business and that the MSP can survive the booms and busts of technology trends....
Protecting SMBs from Cyber Risks Using the NIST Framework
After SMBs Identify risks in the first step of the NIST Framework, the second step defines the process to Protect your assets. We like to refer to this NIST step as making the "security sandwich." We like this metaphor because we incorporate layers of protection to...
Identifying Cyber Risks in SMBs Using the NIST Framework
Frameworks are great for consultant presentations, but are they relevant to how work actually gets done in the real world? No doubt I have seen my share of boil-the-ocean IT models. I, like most of the pragmatic business leaders of our clients, don't have time for...
