How to bridge the gap between business and IT?

IT leaders at retail brand A.S. Watson wanted to improve the client experience through a bold and innovative change in strategy. They needed to get the technology team on board and find a way to share complex information with the rest of the organisation. If they could not bridge the gap between IT and business, their inspirational vision for growth could fail. 

Ink Strategy ran a series of intensive workshops. We worked with a multi-disciplinary team of leaders to create a strong visual to represent the planned redesign of the technology landscape. This was shared with IT and other teams to see if it made sense. Facilitated discussions led to a co-created compelling story to share throughout the organisation. People became so connected, engaged and aligned with the new strategy that it energised them to move forward and run with the vision.

The result of our design work helped align the IT teams ambition with the business strategy and overall direction of the organisation. The vision was shared with business units across the world and found a prominent place offices across the globe for the years to come. Since launching the vision A.S. Watson’s IT department has fully implemented the vision successfully. The vision poster assisted in stakeholder engagement, alignment and consistency in storytelling.

It takes time to flesh out a clear IT architecture as these topics are often either very high over or super detailed. The resulting vision poster had a balanced representation of both the details holistic overview. This IT vision ensured that all stakeholders knew where their investments were going and assisted in efficient resource allocation along the way. The vision helped IT teams prioritise projects based on strategic importance highlighted in the poster. Moreover the poster enabled smooth communication and collaboration between different departments during implementation.

Interested in hearing more about how Ink Strategy can help you to bridge the gap between It and the business departments? Let us know on the contact page.