Information technology (IT) holds a major key to increasing operating efficiency. In this fourth article of the "innovation" series, you are expanding your "what if" search to include technology. IT includes all the hardware, software, and computer networking in a business. By moving away from conventional approaches, you are able to take advantage of the IT tools that dramatically improve the profitability of a company. It is essential to recognize the untapped capabilities of technology such as web technologies, cloud computing and global information systems.

In your IT review, investigate the current architecture—the hardware and software components and computer systems—to determine if there are legacy systems in use. You may find that an existing system serves a particular process, but it may be frozen in time so it has limited usage. In a very sophisticated environment, you may find that a process may have bundles of programs but lack interfaces. These findings may require investigating the potential of the following:

· System interfaces

· Integration of technologies

· Multimedia distribution mechanism

· Networks and informational databases

The complexity of the underlying architecture does not need to be an obstacle in your redesign. You can eliminate this high-risk technology and introduce an innovative approach. The goal is to expand further than conventional personal computers and networks into integrations of other technologies.

Depending on the size of your business, you can use in-house staff or an outside consulting firm for the review. The review team ascertains the necessary technological changes using the following steps:

1. Review all computer hardware, software, programs and systems

2. Determine infrastructure and development requirements

3. Prepare a business proposal for each project

4. Complete an analysis and design for each project

5. Perform a cost-benefit analysis for each project

6. Prioritize projects based on return on investment

All of these steps lead to logical recommendations based on the information gathered. It is important to document the findings so you can proceed to the next steps in the process as follows:

1. Seek approval and funding from executive management for 3-5 projects

2. Form project teams to include a project leader and staff

3. Initiate the re-design process on approved projects

4. Complete testing and quality assurance of all changes

5. Implement delivery and roll-out project

You should schedule periodic updates to keep executive management informed about the status of each project. This includes results achieved to date plus any positive business results. Project leaders will also want to keep management informed of any scope creep or change in specifications for any project.

Plan for contingencies in each project, as risks are inherent in any major technology undertaking. For instance there may be a need to pull technology resources. You should have a strategy for dealing with unforeseen occurrences. If there are unforeseen circumstances, you need to perform a risk assessment and communicate immediately to everyone involved in the project.

Finally, you achieve greater executive management buy-in if you can demonstrate some early successes. This is accomplished by planning six-month releases, nine-month releases and/or twelve-month releases for various projects. As this is the culmination of days, weeks and months of work by you and a large team of technology staff, plan a company-wide celebration when you implement a major project positively impacting the company as a whole.