How to Succeed in Strategic Planning

CIO — A decade ago, most CIOs had to beg or negotiate their way into the organization’s strategic planning process. Things are different now. Few CIOs today find it necessary to plead for a place at the table, says Michael Earl, director of the London Business School’s Centre for the Network Economy. His research indicates that more than half of CIOs are being invited to take a seat. "The expectations have changed. In most sophisticated corporations, it is simply assumed that CIOs will be involved in strategic planning," he says.

Near-constant reassessment might be the defining characteristic of contemporary strategic planning. "The cycle these days is very, very short," notes Earl. "In many corporations, the strategic plan is reviewed monthly, even weekly." Frequent?some might say frantic?reassessment is also the coin of the realm in IT, and CIOs are therefore accustomed to making quick judgments about new technologies. As a result, CIOs are uniquely suited among their colleagues to take a leading position in the ongoing development of the strategic plan.

Once CIOs are seated in the boardroom, however, precisely what role do they play in strategic planning? For answers, look to technological change?which is, after all, why CIOs were invited to the strategic planning process in the first place. "The Internet has changed forever the notion of business and IT stratification," says Ryan Nelson, director of the Center for the Management of Information Technology at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce. "Along with applications like ERP and CRM, e-commerce has brought IT front and center to the executive table."

The Technology Scout

One challenge CIOs face is synchronizing the company’s vision with the pace of technological change. Once, organizations could fashion mid- and long-range plans, confident in the relative stability of their underlying assumptions. Today, that same five-, three- or even one-year window may represent an entire generation in business-critical technologies. Which begs a question: Is it even possible to plan strategically?that is, with a view to the long term?in such an environment?

"Yes, it is possible to [develop a] vision and plan out three years in advance," declares Carl Wilson, executive vice president and CIO of Marriott International in Washington, D.C. "Although when technology was more static, one did have a clearer view of a few years out." The trick is gauging how soon new technologies will be assimilated by society at large, he says. This is where the CIO’s role as technology scout is most valuable to his partners in the executive suite.

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