Week 2 – Assignment 1
ModMeters Case Study
ModMeters is the largest manufacturer of metering components of all types in the world
which includes both mechanical and digital products (McKeen et al, 2015). The company has
been in the IT business since long time and automated almost every aspect of its business from
finance and accounting to supply chain management (McKeen et al, 2015). At ModMeters, the
current challenge is to build an IT planning and budgeting process that accommodates various
types of projects needed for business to meet corporate objectives. These projects include
implementation of new business strategies, operate and enhance existing businesses/ products,
meet auditing requirements, support and maintenance of applications and infrastructure,
reengineering of existing systems and processes to build robust and flexible systems etc.
IT planning and budgeting process is one of the most painful but a highly essential
element needed for an organization. Every organization must have a well-defined IT strategic
planning process. During this process, both the IT and business leaders should work together to
make right business decisions by investing on projects that meets larger enterprise goals. These
projects should be evaluated and prioritized based on business value, financial return, strategic
fit, technical fit, implementation risk, and operational risk (Apptio, 2017). The key important
stages of the IT strategic planning process are
1. Identify the strategic position:
This is considered as the preparation phase for IT strategy planning process. As part of this step,
the stakeholders and enterprise leaders should identify the key strategic issues based on the
feedback from customers and current market data. The leaders should also have a clear
understanding about the organizations mission, long term vision and core values. Also,
performing SWOT analysis to understand strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats will
help the leaders to understand the strategic position of the company.
2. Build a strategic plan:
After having a clear picture about strategic position of the company, key strategic issues and
priority of the projects, the IT and business leaders should develop a plan to accomplish business
objectives by determining the timelines based on value and availability of resources and also key
performance indicators to measure the progress and success of these projects.
3. Implement and manage the strategic plan:
The plan should be communicated to individuals at all levels in the organization. To accomplish
the business strategy, using Lucidchart and swimlanes, the team should build a concrete plan
with detailed steps indicating the process and ownership for each step. Also, having regular
reviews and check-in points will help the team address any issues identified immediately.
4. Review and revisit the strategic plan:
The enterprise leaders should regularly review the progress of current projects, reevaluate the
priorities and if needed revise the strategic plan so that IT employees can focus on working on
right tasks that generates value and meet enterprise goals.
Classified as General
Week 2 - Assignment 2
Having a best IT planning process helps the company succeed and be competitive in the market.
References
Apptio. (2017). 3 steps to align IT budgeting with the enterprise strategic planning process.
Retrieved from https://www.apptio.com/emerge/3-steps-align-it-budgeting-enterprise-
strategic-planning-process
Lucidchart Content Team. (2017). The 4 Steps of the Strategic Planning Process. Retrieved from
https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/the-4-steps-of-the-strategic-planning-process
McKeen, J.D., & Smith, H.A. (2015). IT strategy: Issues and practices (3rd ed.). Pearson.
Classified as General
