Franchise companies or regional offices who subscribe to central IT services often benefit from the cost savings that purchasing leverage gives and the reliability of, say, one standard image laptop, but how does the IT department cater for departmental requests and local needs?
Whilst at face value, say, one restaurant may do the same thing as another, questions around the brand, menu, price point, user experience and customer habits may require a significantly different set of answers.
If the IT strategy is to centralise everything, then that comes at the cost of responsiveness to regional needs; whereas if services are managed regionally then that can raise costs. Further complications arise on how projects are funded, decided and scoped. Lastly, keeping pace with technology trends and the changing business environment means that whatever the solution, it is now obsolete.
Does this challenge resonate with you?
We're writing a short whitepaper based on interviews (questions below) with IT directors to understand the different strategies employed and glean best practices from peers and thought leaders within the technology community. To be published 2023 Q1.
Interview Questions:
What technology projects are receiving top priority at the moment?
How has the technology agenda with business sponsors been set?
How do you cater for similar requests on the same service / process such as end point computing, invoicing or document management from different stakeholders e.g. localisation, franchise owners, or different regions / business units
How confident are you that the solution your IT function provides meets the real need of the requester - why?
Briefly list the activities, meetings and tools you use to manage your portfolio of projects
What criteria do you use to select projects?
What best practices have you picked up as a result of managing a portfolio of requirements / projects?
Where do think the bottlenecks are in managing demand through to delivery
What are your thoughts on removing those bottlenecks?
