You're aligning IT strategy ROI calculations with business objectives. How do you ensure perfect harmony?

Understand the key objectives and how IT can support them. Focus on metrics that directly reflect business value, such as revenue growth, cost savings, or customer satisfaction. Engage with business leaders to ensure your calculations resonate with their priorities. Regularly review and adjust your strategy to stay aligned with evolving goals. Communicate ROI in a way that highlights its impact on achieving business success, ensuring both IT and business objectives are perfectly in sync.

Business objectjves are/should be defined seperately, IT strategy should allign itself to business objectives. This is the most important point. Once IT strategy is aligned across organization, divide it into phases, just to give robustness and space to pivot during reallignment of IT strategy to business objectives, thats when one can move on to ROI calculations, simplest way is to monitor rois at each phase with expect how ready organization is to acheive its business objectives. Savings of phase 1 and to platform to launch phase 2 will give alignment on subjective roi calculation. Which can later be calculated based on budget allocated to business objective acheived to next phase platform launch.

Start by identifying specific business objectives, whether it's increasing revenue, improving customer experience, or reducing costs. Align IT investments to these goals. Ensure that stakeholders agree on priorities and understand how IT can contribute. Clear communication and measurable outcomes are key to setting a unified direction. Regular reviews of these goals can prevent misalignment as the business evolves, ensuring IT investments remain strategic and relevant. Engage leadership and teams regularly to stay connected. Collaboration fosters clarity. This drives actionable strategies.

Business objectjves are/should be defined seperately, IT strategy should allign itself to business objectives. This is the most important point. Once IT strategy is aligned across organization, divide it into phases, just to give robustness and space to pivot during reallignment of IT strategy to business objectives, thats when one can move on to ROI calculations, simplest way is to monitor rois at each phase with expect how ready organization is to acheive its business objectives. Savings of phase 1 and to platform to launch phase 2 will give alignment on subjective roi calculation. Which can later be calculated based on budget allocated to business objective acheived to next phase platform launch.

To achieve true alignment between your IT strategy's ROI and business objectives, it’s essential to transcend the typical cost-benefit analysis. The key is to leverage IT as a strategic enabler that directly drives core business outcomes. This means assessing immediate impacts like cost savings or productivity gains and considering IT investments' long-term, transformative potential - how they can create competitive advantages, foster innovation, or open new markets. Tip: Look beyond ROI as a mere financial metric. Think of it as a strategic indicator of your business’s future resilience and growth potential.

According to Paul Simon and his hit from 1975 - "there are 50 ways to leave your lover". And there are for sure 50 ways to sugercoat a BusinessCase also. To avoid going into the pitfall; 1) Agree on the discounting rate ahead of calculating the NPV 2) Make sure that your finance dept agrees on using ROCE calculations, so your figures presents capital already emplyed, so you do not need to have capital costs, interests etc included 3) Think cash flow impact primarly 4) ...but also make sure that you have an EBITDA and eventually EBIT impact presented so you demonstrate an holistic view 5) And finally- always think "delta cost / revenue". If needed, include the H0 and compare this with H1 testing - it is the change / the delta they want

So ROI is a benefit component of an investment over time... however in todays world TCO (total cost of ownership) vs Benefit ; which may not be ROI! needs to be considered when establishing IT strategies... 9 times out of 10 TCO determines the IT strategy not ROI!

Don’t just engage stakeholders - challenge them. The typical approach to stakeholder involvement often leads to safe, status-quo decisions. Instead, push stakeholders to think beyond their departmental silos and consider how IT can drive innovation across the entire organization. By fostering a culture of constructive tension, you ensure that every IT decision is rigorously vetted for its potential to disrupt and elevate the business, not just maintain it. Tip: Use stakeholder engagement as a catalyst for innovation, not just consensus.

Continuous monitoring alone isn't enough - insert agility into your review process. Traditional check-ins often become routine, leading to reactive rather than proactive adjustments. Instead, adopt a dynamic feedback loop where IT and business teams collaborate in real time, allowing you to pivot swiftly in response to emerging opportunities or challenges. This approach ensures alignment and drives innovation by empowering teams to seize strategic advantages as they arise. Tip: Don’t just monitor - build a culture of real-time responsiveness to stay ahead of the curve and outpace competitors.