Most companies talk about digital transformation. Few actually achieve it. Why? Because their IT strategy is often a list of technology purchases, not a plan to transform how the company operates, learns, and grows.
UnoArch have helped and assisted IT Service Providers with transformation strategies. The challenges are real: fragmented systems, unclear responsibilities, inconsistent data, and processes that no one follows. In short: lots of tools, little traction.
Here's how we approach these processes - and how you can build a real, actionable IT strategy for your own company.
1. Start With Brutal Honesty
Forget slide decks. Start with a whiteboard and a question: What's broken?
Common symptoms include:
- No one follows documented processes
- Data can't be trusted
- High spend on tools that no one fully controls
- Employees invent workarounds instead of using existing systems
Your first goal isn't to sound visionary - it's to define reality.
2. Simplify Before You Strategize
Before defining a new direction, reduce the noise in your current landscape.
Typical areas to investigate:
- Are there overlapping tools performing similar functions?
- Are customer touchpoints fragmented across multiple platforms?
- Is your CRM and ERP data consistent and trusted?
An effective IT strategy often begins with consolidation:
- Reduce the number of platforms to those you can maintain and integrate
- Standardize core systems (CRM, ERP, helpdesk, collaboration)
- Build a lightweight, focused architecture tailored to your operational needs
The payoff isn't just simplification - it's focus, control, and long-term savings.
3. Governance Is the Strategy
Here's the secret: No system will fix bad habits.
You must align your business around process discipline, data ownership, and clear consequences for working outside defined paths.
That means:
- Each team owns and maintains the data they generate
- Process deviation is transparent - and corrected
- Dashboards reflect reality, not best guesses
If governance isn't part of your strategy, it will be the reason your strategy fails.
4. Align IT With What the Business Actually Cares About
Want leadership to care about your strategy? Tie it directly to outcomes that impact the bottom line:
- Accurate, automated billing
- Real-time visibility into operations and service delivery
- Reduced manual reconciliation and overhead
- Faster and smoother onboarding for new clients
IT should enable business functions to operate at a higher level of clarity, control, and speed - not just cost less.
5. Create a Roadmap With Momentum
Divide your plan into realistic, achievable phases:
- Phase 1: Setup - Appoint a cross-functional team, establish governance, and map current state.
- Phase 2: Pilot and Prove - Test new tooling, refine processes, and migrate a limited use case.
- Phase 3: Scale and Optimize - Broaden adoption, automate insights, and embed new habits.
Each phase should deliver measurable value. Quick wins build momentum and credibility.
6. Choose Tools You Can Actually Control
The best tool is the one your team can configure, integrate, and extend - without waiting months or paying premium consulting fees.
Here's a hard truth about "Magic Quadrant" tools like ServiceNow, Salesforce, or Dynamics: when your internal staff becomes skilled enough to truly configure and maintain these premium systems, they often leave for consultancy practices where they can earn significantly more money. You're left with expensive licenses and no one who really knows how to use them.
This is why choosing from the top shelf often becomes costly regardless of your initial investment. Mid-tier and lesser-known tools can be just as capable - they're simply less marketed.
The benefit? Your team can actually master them without becoming overqualified for your organization.
Focus on:
- Tools with open APIs and broad community support
- Platforms that support single sign-on and standard integrations
- Solutions that match your internal maturity - not just market hype
- Systems your team can realistically maintain long-term without becoming recruitment targets
When your team owns the tools, you own the roadmap.
7. Think Beyond Efficiency: Think Capability
The end goal isn't just operational efficiency.
It's a more capable company:
- One that can trace every service from sale to delivery
- One that trusts and acts on its data
- One that turns IT into a competitive advantage
An IT strategy done right builds the foundation for long-term adaptability and growth.
Final Thought
An IT strategy isn't a technology plan. It's a business transformation plan, enabled by systems and powered by people.
Don't start with tools. Start with truth.
And if you want help building yours, we're ready.