Developing a Technology Roadmap
In today’s fast-paced digital age, technology is an essential tool for organizations of all sizes to stay competitive and innovative. However, keeping up with the latest technology trends and choosing the right solutions for your organization can be overwhelming. That’s where a technology roadmap comes in – a strategic plan that outlines how technology can help achieve your organization goals over a set period of time. We will explore the key components of a technology roadmap, and how to develop a roadmap that aligns with your organization objectives.
Understand current state
Building a roadmap begins with analyzing your current state to identify areas for improvement and determine which technologies can best address your needs. This analysis should include an assessment of your current technology infrastructure, such as hardware, software, and network systems, as well as an evaluation of the technology market available for your industry. Additionally, it’s crucial to understand your current business processes, workflows, and pain points identified by your teams to detect opportunities for automation and optimization. Are there areas where efficiency can be gained? Duplicate data entry, for example, that could be solved with an integration? Perhaps an opportunity to improve reporting to answer questions needed to help drive organization growth? By conducting an analysis of your current state, you can begin crystalizing the needs of the organization to allow for ultimate growth.
Identify dream future state (as of today)
Once you have identified your needs, start by prioritizing these items and assigning a realistic timeline. Prioritize needs based on each item’s potential value and impact, as well as level of complexity and resource requirements. Flexibility is important when determining a dream future state, not only with the desired timeline, so as not to abandon it (prioritize quick wins), but to also allow for adjustments in the future. The technology landscape 5 years from now will look very different from today, so it’s important to be amenable to your dream future state evolving. In choosing technology, understand how that technology handles change – are there new releases every quarter to improve the product? As part of identifying a dream future state, different technology options may bubble up and need to be evaluated, CLA can support you through this process with our System Selection Services team.
Identify quick wins to drive buy in
Let’s face the facts…technology improvements are not everyone’s cup of tea. Comments like, “when will we see the return on investments on this?” and “this is going to be painful” can derail the momentum. While it is great to have the dream future state in mind, taking little bites off one by one is vital. This ties back to the previous steps of understanding the current gaps. While it may seem obvious, the low hanging projects can get skipped over if they are not identified and outlined up front. Sometimes inviting an outside partner helps create realistic expectations and facilitate competing priorities.
This content was created by CLA’s Tyler Gerig, Digital Growth Associate and Kathy Jastrzebski, Manager
Kathy Jastrzebski is a business software director with CLA’s Intacct team. CLA is an Intacct Premier Partner with a partnership that spans over 15 years and more than 400 successful implementations. Kathy brings five years of accounting experience in the manufacturing, products, service, and nonprofit industries. Along with her accounting experience, she has a passion for leveraging technology to lead finance teams worldwide through system implementations with a mission of increasing department efficiency through business process improvements.
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