Make IT work for you Daniel Teacher, CEO of T-Tech, explains why it's important for your business to have an IT strategy " IT is now at the centre of every business. Poor IT leads to poor customer experience - customers expect a digital-first approach, so businesses that don't adopt this may get left behind. Agile working is now expected as part of every business, so you need quality IT to deliver a good experience and retain talent. " An IT budget allows you to speed up decision making, formulate a plan and set expectations for what you'll achieve. Agreeing this in advance improves visibility on cashflow and increases project output. " At T-Tech, we use a five-step framework to help businesses with their IT strategy. These are: good foundations and security (a cloud and security-first model to support the business foundations); collaboration (in an agile and flexible way, internally and with customers); integration and best use of systems (to get the most from software and how systems integrate); data, analytics and customer insights (key to managing customers and adding value); and automation (freeing up time for staff to work on more meaningful tasks and reducing errors). " 341