The 7 Pains of Tech Strategy

When trying to communicate a “grand and adventurous” idea like this–although let’s be real, this idea shouldn’t be revolutionary–and attempting to persuade people of its importance in the coming years, it’s beneficial to be realistic about the idea as a whole.

We have to understand the cons just as much as the pros, so we know what we’re getting into.

Many of the negatives of creating and implementing a tech strategy are shared by the process of going through a digital transformation (or any major organizational change for that matter).

I was at The Coca-Cola Company when it “digitized the enterprise”, the biggest piece of which was getting sales, sales support, and customer service onto Salesforce.

Before that, they had been using a combination of multiple tools, the chief of which was AS400, which was implemented for them when Ronald Reagan was still in the oval office.

And when I say that transition was painful…I’m talking about some associates that had been using some of those systems for 20 years at least.

It would have been easier to corral a herd of cats into a bubble bath.

It almost made the whole dadgum thing not worth it!

…Almost.

Now, there is enough content on this topic that I could have stretched this out over two issues, but for the sake of not dwelling on the negative too much, I will shorten the last 4 pains as much as possible since they also have to deal with digital transformation, and there’s an issue on that in the horizon.

We’re Making a Bet

The analogy that Roger Martin frequently uses in his works on strategy is that of “making a bet”.

Of course, the decision maker ideally has much more information and experience at hand than if they were playing a random hand of poker at a casino, but the point is that certain inputs do not necessarily always result in certain outputs.

Again, it’s worth noting that a strategy is not a plan. A plan makes us warm and fuzzy because it gives a semblance of a feeling of control. A plan starts at point “A”, then moves to “B” and then “C”, eventually taking us all the way to “Z”.

A strategy, by its very nature, will leave us at least a little uncomfortable, because it says, “I know I want to get to point ‘Z’, so I’m going to put all this stuff together at point ‘A’ that I think will get me there.”

Basically, the outcome is not guaranteed.

Difficult to Quantify

In a world where so much of business is supposed to be “data-driven”, one of the chief challenges of a tech strategy is that it may provide very little data to give credence to its merits.

Return on Investment. Cost-Benefit Analysis. Payback Period. Average Resolution Time. These are all nice analyses that give us chunks of data to make us feel better. They give us some measure of assurance.

A tech strategy might dig some of that up, but the point is not to give us hard, friendly data. It’s meant to point us in the direction that will yield long term gains and benefits, even though we may not be able to measure them just yet.

Solution Bias

Maybe one of the more nuanced difficulties is the fact that tech leaders and gurus will always come at a problem with what they know or perceive to be the “best” solution (i.e. their favorite).

Technical consultants will claim platform agnosticism, but it is hard for them not to lean in a specific direction.

A tech strategy, on the other hand, might demand fealty to a specific platform or type of product that doesn’t agree with those biases.

Cost

This is where tech strategy begins to mix with digital transformation.

We all know that a tech upgrade means money, potentially lots of money.

Implementing a tech strategy could also mean lots of money, but that’s because it might mean reorganizing everything to work together inside our framework.

The Way Things Are

It is humorous to me how most in the business world–from the mom and pop store owner to the corporate executive–know that “It’s just the way we’ve always done things” is a HORRIBLE excuse to not make changes, but the sentiment is still acted on in practice

Or rather, it keeps people from acting at all.

Discipline and Determination

This almost goes without saying, but the aspect of strategy that needs us to place our bets also needs us to stick with those bets.

Otherwise, we will never have the chance to see any real change.

Leadership

What is really meant here is change management, but this is the true answer to the challenges that arise, just as much with tech strategy as with digital transformation more broadly.

In the end, it is leaders that will need to put the tech strategy in place, communicate the vision, set expectations, gain buy-in, preach a better future state, and keep the charge going when the going gets tough.

If we look back at a lot of these pains, it’s easy to think well, some of these actually seem pretty reasonable! Most of us want some data to back up a decision or would rather not spend a treasure chest of money on a new software tool, or push our employees to the point of rebellion.

But here’s the thing, are we ever any more sure that we will get the outcome we want if we use the platform we like or conduct the analysis we crave?

Is anything actually guaranteed when we have a plan?

We know the answer.

A solid tech strategy, though, might just get us to that outcome.

We just have to place our bets.

And stick with them.

-The Technical Executive Team