Technology Vision and Strategy

The Enterprise Architect's flagship deliverables

“Well, we know what we are doing, but we don’t have anything written down or documented…” Anon CXO

You don’t have a Strategy. You don’t have a Vision. And you might think you know what you're doing, but if your team is too big to feed with just two pizzas, you can be sure that there will be differences in understanding, expectations and direction. 

“Vision and Strategy without documented architecture is like heading up a mountain without a map, compass or any of the equipment you need to scale it.”

Technology Vision is the aspirational, long-term view of technology’s role in the business. Technology Strategy is the actionable plan that connects today’s reality to that vision. I understand why we often fall into the trap of not documenting our tech vision and strategy. It isn’t always clear exactly what a tech vision and strategy entails, what the end deliverable should be, or what success looks like. There aren’t easy templates to complete, and you can't “creatively borrow” someone else’s.  Even in an AI-driven world, human thought and creativity (alongside time and money) are still needed to develop the documentation. This isn’t to say that executives don’t value Vision and Strategy when managing £multi-million budgets; rather, the associated activities performed by Enterprise Architects can often be under-recognised.

Why is a Technology Vision and Strategy needed?

As an Executive Leader, documenting the technology vision and strategy is one of the most important foundations for any enterprise or transformation programme. Here is why:

• Alignment to the Wider Purpose: Technology is always part of a wider context. Business outcomes and value must lead any technology decision-making. Setting out this strategic cascade grounds the technology transformation in terms of clear business outcomes.

• Common North Star: A single point of reference to connect both business and technical stakeholders. The technology vision tells a story that speaks to a broad range of interests by addressing different stakeholders’ needs and articulating Technology in business/industry language.

• Clarity of Direction: To achieve the North Star goals, it is critical to align the internal and external teams on the journey and how this will be achieved. We need to be sure that our mission is realistic, and this can get particularly complex when taking into consideration all human change factors.

• Measurable targets: To progress and realise the vision and strategy, Executive stakeholders need a shared and specific understanding of what will be achieved. The outcomes, KPI, benefits and value that will be measured provide sufficient confidence to progress toward business case development.

Given the complexity and variation on content, structure, and audience with a range of technical and non-technical stakeholders, the job of vision and strategy architecture often needs to work together with marketing presentation flair – “m-architecture”, as a mentor often described it. As a result, the product can be quite varied. There are so many different ways to present this information - a slide deck, a jazzy executive booklet, financial models, architectures, process diagrams, target operating models, roadmaps, and even some boxes and lines screen-grabbed from a whiteboard session. The responsibility is with the Owner to decide the best outputs to achieve the objectives of the Tech Vision and Strategy, and how to get their audience engaged.

“Articulating the Vision and Strategy from a wide range of viewpoints allows varied stakeholder groups to engage with the message”

Capturing and documenting the strategy and vision requires an understanding of the business and technology landscape of the organisation, balancing the breadth of scope with the depth of impact that the strategy and vision will bring. We do this by:

• understanding key stakeholders’ interests

• reviewing the wider business and industry climate

• analysing business and technical domains

• enterprise portfolio management maturity assessments

• IT estate review of applications, technologies, infrastructure, commercials, support

• business reporting, data and the architecture, cybersecurity, integrations and infrastructures that underpin these

• utilising industry and reference blueprints.

Core Architecture Method

Through these activities, we look to present a narrative that explains the current state environment, and how this will be changed through the vision and strategy. The traditional architectural process of current>target>gap analysis (see image) holds true; and we present the vision and strategy through a number of different models and artefacts. That’s right, the vision and strategy do not need to be just one document (although an Exec Summary is always advisable), but a compilation of the business scenarios, personas, value propositions and KPI, capability maps, value chain diagrams, solution concept diagrams, strategy and motivation layer, etc. And, of course, these could be built formally in modelling languages like ArchiMate and stored in an architectural repository tool, or using the O365 toolkit or anything in between.

“The Enterprise Architect will analyse the information available and present the Vision and Strategy to support Stakeholder buy-in”

The aim of a vision and strategy phase is to get stakeholder approval, buy-in, and ultimately funding for the technology activities. Larger organisations have mature review and approval cycles; other organisations develop an ad-hoc approach aligning to financing rounds, budget cycles or other strategic inflection points (e.g. M&A, executive change). In any case, the technology strategy and vision need to be published, reviewed, and financed. We then need to make sure that all stakeholders are on board, have time to reflect on the purpose of the documentation and are committed to the ride ahead.

“While we often expect to see Vision and Strategy developed for Digital Transformation programmes, a technology strategy is equally vital in moments of creation, convergence, compliance, and cultural change.”

Generally, I have seen that technology vision and strategy deliverables are needed to give Executive leadership confidence to invest in technology, whether this is on a short-term basis, cyclical basis, or for strategic business investments. These can be summarised within the following scenarios:

Scenario	Purpose
The Technology Capability Strategy	Defines the long-term direction and purpose of the technology in the enterprise. Aligns mission, vision, and values with market positioning and stakeholder expectations. Sets technology goals alongside business stakeholders to define targets for user experience, automation, and optimisation. Guides portfolio management, resource allocation, vendor relationships and investment priorities. Anchors all technology operations, products, change, cyber and transformations to a cohesive strategic narrative.
The Transformation Strategy	Articulates the case for Transformation, why it is necessary now and the impacts of inaction. Defines the scope of the transformation, the target operating model, and the desired future state. Structure capability uplift across people, process, and technology. Establishes a phased roadmap with quick wins and long-horizon goals. Embeds governance, change management and cultural evolution.
Product or Platform Strategy	Clarifies the value proposition and differentiation of the product/platform. Aligns product development with customer needs and business outcomes. Defines modularity, scalability, and interoperability principles. Sets out roadmaps, release cadences, and innovation pipelines. Integrates the ecosystem through APIs, partnerships, and extensibility.
M&A Strategy	Technical due diligence of the enterprise and operational technology landscape Assessment of people, process, platforms, infrastructure, spend, governance, cyber profile, risk and compliance. Manage data requests, access, and provide leadership over the analysis activity. Produce IT Due Diligence Report and Cyber Due Diligence reports – quantifying and evaluating the scale of tech risk and costs of mitigations. Provide recommendations and costs for integration and impact on operational budgets. Support the architecture of Day 0, Day 1 and post-merger activities.
Cyber / Regulatory / Risk-based Strategy	Recognises the cyber threat landscape that the organisation is subject to – identifies patterns and frameworks to align to (e.g. GDPR, CSRD, DORA, NIS2). Focuses on technical decision-making and governance around the Cyber / Regulatory / Risk-based requirements that are driving the strategy. Establishes appropriate levels of technical and non-technical controls to mitigate risk through governance, monitoring platforms, scenario planning, and incident response capabilities.

Ideally, strategy and vision are an ongoing function within the enterprise architecture capability of an organisation. Whilst smaller enterprises will have a need for ad hoc technology vision and strategy, mid to large organisations will have ongoing needs. These require collaboratively creating the strategy with stakeholders, updating models and viewpoints, managing the enterprise repository and artefacts, and finally supporting the realisation of the vision and implementation of the strategy.

“The Vision and Strategy should be a catalyst for the organisation to achieve its targets. Now that it is presented clearly, the foundations are in place to succeed”

The exercise of documenting the vision and strategy ensures that stakeholders' needs are heard, requirements captured, and there is a general agreement to proceed. This could be formally recognised in a stage gate, steering group review or architecture decision, but importantly, is what comes next! You’ve made the mission clear and got buy-in from sponsors and partners, but this is where you now need to start putting some flesh on the bones of the skeleton plans you’ve made.

The documented vision and strategy give the team the authority to proceed and put the proposing executive at the front and centre of this portfolio or programme of work. Depending on the level of depth that you have analysed and proposed in the vision and strategy analysis sprint, there are likely to be further iterations of analysis, discovery and planning; delivering strategic planning; resulting in a business case, financial modelling and implementation planning.

And finally, whilst I would love to convince all CXOs that tech vision and strategy is Best Practice, let's also not forget to consider our regulatory and fiduciary requirements for technology vision and strategy.

• Government offices and regulatory bodies expect businesses to show that their technology decisions are strategically governed and aligned with business strategy.

• Companies may need to adhere to frameworks like DORA or NIS2, demonstrating IT strategy, proactive risk management and enterprise governance, especially in regulated or publicly listed firms.

• Boards and audit committees expect to oversee how strategic investments are managed alongside the management of technology risk and performance of their operational business against targets.

• Investors in M&A, and any major portfolio or programme, will need a clear understanding of the plan and context to enable their due diligence.

  
  

Technology vision and strategy usually takes place at the bleeding edge of executive leadership. Chiefs set a meaningful direction, and the teams need to respond. The foundational architectural work begins with the exercise of analysing, documenting and socialising the vision and strategy. The knowledge and experience gained, the documentation and data captured, and the relationships built during this process will all provide the foundations for success, from tech architecture to operations.