David vs. Goliath I.T. Tactics

I was talking to a company yesterday (let's call them ACME) about their I.T. function. They are a successful company who have been around a long time. In their industry, they're the runt of the litter. All their key competitors are many times their size.

While they produce competitive products and are growing rapidly, they're struggling to "keep up" with technological advances of their competitors. After all, they share customers with competitors who provide glossy, full featured business portals, plug'n'play system integration capabilities and who knows what else.

The competition has I.T. resources that dwarf the size of ACME's.

In some cases, small can be a competitive advantage. When your resources are constrained it's important that you make smart decisions about projects. Here's some suggestions that came to mind.

1. Make a list of things your I.T. department should STOP doing. Clear the decks of any development activity that isn't specifically addressing your competitive situation.

2. Edit the To Do list to two or three critical enhancements. In my experience, teams can get paralyzed by the sheer length of the To Do list. (I know it happens to me, whenever I glance at my "to do" list around the house!). Once you get a few tasks knocked off the list, your team can begin to build momentum.

3. Throw the rest of the To Do list away. Your priorities will be extremely dynamic and will likely change several times before you ever revisit the list. Once you've completed the first three, then have the business decide on the next three.

4. Steal ideas shamelessly and make them your own. When you're playing catch-up, you can't afford the time to reinvent the wheel. (Can you EVER afford the time?) Use Pareto's rule and look for the 20% of the competitor's services that deliver 80% of the value and implement those. Large companies have a tendency to tie up their tremendous I.T. resources on features and functionality that their customers will rarely (if ever) use. In some cases large I.T. organizations suffer from the "we'll do it because we can" mentality. Take advantage of that.

5. Try for quick wins by implementing quickly. Look for packaged applications that can be quickly integrated and deliver quick results. Use your peer network (in non competing industries) - how do you handle EDI, what Portal software do you use and why?

6. Make the hard decisions about your talent pool. One excellent I.T. resource can be as effective as three or four average-to-poor resources. Judge fairly, but judge quickly. And don't be afraid to open your wallet to get the expertise you need. Make the case with HR that you're expanding the scope and responsibilities of the positions, not just replacing the junior level Business Analyst. Underperformers have a bigger negative impact on smaller teams than on larger teams (where they can more readily disappear into the woodwork).

7. Keep an eye on the horizon, but stay in the present. It's easy to be distracted by minutia (while we're doing this, we could also fix that). Stay focused on the present and achieve. You'll get to those other opportunities later.

Do you have any additional thoughts that might help ACME out?