The purpose of this document is to share our high level IT strategy via this discussion template document. The aim of the document is to bring structure to the business over the next few years.
The IT strategy over the coming years should focus on:
- Strategic relationships - Removing IT Operational Risk - Innovation, Economies of scale & Overhead reduction - Leverage Technology to support business objectives and deliver P&L contribution
Following the period of sustained and significant investment, IT must continue to develop the infrastructure and delivery Services throughout the business.
Strategic Relationships
- Develop existing 3rd party strategic relationships to foster a joint venture / partner mentality - Steer / input into future developments or product enhancements for existing systems in the direction that will ultimately benefit the business - Adopt a more centralised management and coordinational’ approach to external suppliers while maintaining business strategy and direction.
Removing IT Operational risk
As the business scales up for growth it is important the IT infrastructure is able to adapt and cope with the growth. The current head office IT environment contains a wide variety of IT systems such as :
- Marketing - HR - Operations systems - Accounts - Payroll - IT - File and database storage systems - Email - Management information - Office tools
This is spread over roughly 10 servers. Each requiring monitoring, backup activities, user administration and operational checks by onsite resource. We should investigate the option of moving towards a hosted model that these devices be moved to a remote data centre and managed 24x7 by technical specialist. These organizations typically offer:
Environment management (A/C, Fires, UPS power control, generators) Onsite 24x7 staff Full range of spares One hour hardware fix Scalability
All contributing to the reduction of risk in what has become a critical IT operating environment. Allowing technical specialist to manage this frees up existing IT staff to focus on business projects that provide real business benefit.
Removing the head office computer room and also the development environment would have a practical effect of releasing additional office space.
Innovation, Economies of scale & Overhead reduction
Encourage third parties to make us aware of new technologies and developments
Investigate new disruptive technology developments that could produce business advantage either through cost savings, improved customer service, improved management information or competitive advantage. Specific examples of future disruptive technology
Cloud computing - Delivering Head office business applications by not having to invest in expensive hardware systems at our business locations. An end to the upgrade or lease cycle where new hardware or software needs to be bought or leased every few years. With this commoditization of IT, the burden of paying for upgrades falls onto the service provider and not the business. In effect we could just roll out PCs with an operating system on them. Virtualization (consolidation opportunities) Social Media / Mobile technology Handheld data capture / Epos Kiosk technology
Economies of scale, centralization of servers via a hosted service and improved customer service should be investigated through
Hosting of servers in a data centre
Internal Business development
Engage with the business earlier with new business initiatives to ensure a full, sustainable and robust solution
Assist Marketing drive to increase sales with technology tools such as Social media and mobile devices
Sales Channel efficiency
Continue to develop and enhance a robust and resilient environment to the web platform and take advantage of any conversion increases
Continue to develop and enhance a robust and resilient environment for the Call Centre
Continue to develop and enhance provide a robust and resilient environment for site
Leverage Technology to support business objectives and deliver P&L contribution
Use of existing systems & Services
Drive operational benefit of the existing systems by improved internal training through the creation of USER GROUPS. Non technical, in order to drive developments internally and could potentially have a budget in order to decide what to spend on the development of the system.
Develop an internal Service mentality with the provision of published Service Levels and key KPI data out to the business
Build strong internal and business unit relationships to truly understand the business requirement and Operational requirement
System Integration
Aim towards a seamless integration of key systems, development of management information systems (MI) available between IT systems such as Web & CRM to provide accurate and timely integration.
Digital partner
Look to build on the digital strategy via the introduction of a new digital agency that will broker between all parties. Enhance the web offering to drive more sales through and make more preferable than the Call Centre channel.
4little1s is a nursery furniture and baby bedding retailer
We also love to stock some things that are a little unique whether they are handmade or just great products that mums have recommended to us. (If you have any great ideas we'd be pleased to hear from you!) We offer great baby bedding, nursery furniture and baby gifts such as baby hampers and baby bouquets especially for newly arrived little ones.
