A Roadmap For Expediting Growth And Differentiation

As a technology leader today, you have a rare and promising opportunity to step onto center stage and become a driving force for business change. Consumers and employees alike have higher expectations for their digital experiences and demand more from the technology they interact with. If you evolve your IT culture to focus on the customer, you can build a technology strategy and architecture that not only allow you to adapt to meet changing demands, but also enable you to readily deliver on innovations that drive growth and differentiation.

An effective roadmap to customer-driven technology transformation will provide a clear vision of where your organization needs to go, a detailed strategy and practical models for guiding your organization on the journey, and tactical plans for developing the technology that will bring your vision to life. Your roadmap should help you weigh your options, understand best practices, and make the sound technology and strategy decisions with confidence — all while aligning your colleagues and teams around the same transformation vision.

The key to impacting business growth with a customer-first strategy is strong alignment — both within the organization and with external partners. The CIO, CTO and architecture leaders must work cohesively to successfully deploy a new tech strategy. But beyond that, it’s imperative that you build strong partnerships with business leaders across the organization to enable the rapid creation of value through change. Having trusted external partners who understand your priorities are equally as essential to guiding and validating your strategy.

Another key step along the transformation journey for technology leaders is adopting an IT operating model that will foster customer obsession and align your technology initiatives directly to business growth. Whether you’re about to undergo a major transformation journey or working to prove the business value of technology, teams must embrace a flexible and resilient technology foundation and operating model that adapts to systemic risk.

One of the fastest ways to deliver innovative experiences to customers and employees is by leveraging the agility of modern infrastructure and ecosystems. Companies that have embraced cloud platforms, practices, and partners can more easily adapt to change, enable creativity at speed, and build resiliency into their digital operations. Organizations that haven’t developed a clear cloud strategy that aligns to their business goals risk incurring high technical debt and slower digital transformation.

Forrester’s Cloud Strategy Fundamentals Model helps technology architecture leaders define their strategy and identify the right mix of cloud platforms, partners, and practices to drive business growth.

Increasingly more and more personalized and customer-centered experiences are underpinned by data flows and machine learning (ML).

For technology-driven transformation to work well, security and risk management must be incorporated at every step of the journey. Security, privacy, and risk management are the foundation of a trusted business. Yet only 8% of security leaders have implemented advanced cybersecurity and privacy practices. Our Security & Risk team helps clients move beyond the old CIA triad of confidentiality, integrity, and availability — to prioritize competence, integrity, and empathy as guiding principles and practice Forrester’s Zero Trust Model of information security. Forrester clients are able to stay ahead of threats, safeguard their reputation, and create privacy-by-design experiences.

Also important today is ensuring your IT transformation vision and strategy is sustainable. Information and communication technology equipment alone is responsible for about 1.4% of total global carbon emissions and, right now, data centers consume close to 1% of electricity of the world. When you incorporate sustainability into your technology strategy you not only improve business operations, but you also enhance the employee experience, attract customers and investments, and contribute to a long-term growth strategy.

Today, technology leaders are measured on their ability to deliver more value in less time and fuel exponential growth. To be successful, you need to be able to quickly and confidently make technology decisions that will meet the demands of your customers and employees. With Forrester by your side, you’ll have the confidence to break away from digital sameness, leveraging emerging technologies to win and attract more customers and drive business success.

Whether you’re a CIO or CTO leading an IT organization, heading up an enterprise architecture or DevOps organization, Forrester provides the bold vision, curated frameworks and tools, and hands-on guidance you’ll need to convert your existing infrastructure into a customer-obsessed growth engine.

Our services for technology leaders and their teams include: