# IT strategy for mid-sized companies: target picture, roadmap and decisions that hold > How business goals become an IT strategy that departments understand and management supports: target picture, fields of action, sequence, effort and measurable results. URL: https://techport.ai/en/it-beratung/it-strategie-und-steuerung/it-strategie --- 1. [IT Consulting](/en/it-beratung)/ 2. [IT Strategy and Steering](/en/it-beratung/it-strategie-und-steuerung)/ 3. Developing an IT strategy [IT Strategy and Steering](/en/it-beratung/it-strategie-und-steuerung) · Focus topic # Developing an IT strategy By Redaktion techport.ai, IT-Beratung · Last updated on 21 August 2026 Most companies have an IT strategy. It is simply not written down anywhere. It emerges from the decisions of recent years, from the systems that happen to be there, and from whatever the long standing provider recommends. The result is a landscape in which every single decision was defensible and which nobody would build that way again. An IT strategy is not a document for the board but a tool for daily work. It answers in advance the questions that would otherwise be reopened in every project: what IT should deliver for the business, which systems carry that, what you do yourselves, and how you measure progress. Once those four answers exist in writing, decisions take days instead of months. ## How you notice it * Every project begins with a fundamental discussion that has already been held three times. * Management asks what IT actually contributes to the business and gets a technical answer. * There is a list of initiatives but no order that anyone can justify. * New requirements regularly lead to a new system rather than an extension of what exists. ## Why this happens IT strategies rarely get written because daily work is loud. Incidents, requests and projects fill every week, and the time to sit down and think about three years does not appear by itself. On top of that comes a language barrier: management talks about markets, margins and growth, IT talks about systems, versions and capacity. Without translation there is no shared target picture, only a wish list next to an inventory list. ## How we go about it 1. **Translate business goals.** We talk to management and department heads about what should happen over the next three years: growth, new markets, new products, acquisitions, succession, cost pressure. From that we derive what IT has to be capable of, expressed in the language of the business. 2. **Establish the starting position.** We record what exists today: applications, infrastructure, contracts, costs, in-house capabilities and external dependencies. Added to that is an honest assessment of what will carry the coming requirements and what will not. 3. **Set the target picture and fields of action.** We describe the target state and the gap, structured into a small number of fields of action with benefit, effort, risk and dependencies. Each field gets an owner and a criterion by which success can be measured. 4. **Set up the roadmap and the steering.** We put the fields of action into an order that matches your capacity and define when and in which forum progress is reviewed. The strategy becomes a document touched twice a year rather than a folder on a shelf. ## What you gain * Decisions that come faster because the fundamental questions have been answered once. * A shared language between management, departments and IT. * A justified sequence, and with it the option to postpone initiatives deliberately. ## From our projects In strategy projects we regularly find that the real gap is not between current and target state but between the expectations of individual areas. Sales expects a customer platform, production expects stability, finance expects automation, and IT tries to serve all of them at once. As soon as those expectations sit next to each other on one page, prioritisation becomes a conversation rather than a conflict. The second recurring finding: in-house capacity covers roughly half of what is planned. Saying that early saves a year of delay reports. ## Häufige Fragen How long should an IT strategy be in a mid-sized company? Twelve to twenty pages is enough, half of that appendices. The core consists of the target picture, five to seven fields of action and a roadmap across three years. Anything beyond that is rarely read and even more rarely updated. How often does the strategy need revising? Once a year with a short look at progress and assumptions, and fundamentally every three years. In addition, whenever the business changes: acquisitions, new sites, the loss of a major customer or a change in management. ## Let us talk about Developing an IT strategy In a thirty minute first call we work out where your biggest lever sits and whether we are the right people for it. [Arrange an initial call](/en/kontakt)[Our consulting](/en/so-funktionierts) ## Further reading [IT Strategy and SteeringIT costs and value contributionWhat your IT really costs and what for: make cost blocks visible, attribute effort to the areas that cause it, separate run from change, and evidence the contribution IT makes.](/en/it-beratung/it-strategie-und-steuerung/it-kosten-und-wertbeitrag)[IT Strategy and SteeringPrioritising IT projectsHow a wish list becomes a portfolio: assess initiatives by benefit, effort and risk, plan capacity realistically, recognise dependencies and justify decisions.](/en/it-beratung/it-strategie-und-steuerung/projektportfolio)[Architecture and ApplicationsCleaning up the application landscapeWhich systems carry which process, where data originates, what is duplicated and what is being phased out. An overview that speeds up decisions instead of filling folders.](/en/it-beratung/architektur-und-anwendungen/anwendungslandschaft)[KnowledgeIT maturity checkKnow where your IT stands in ten minutes.](/en/it-beratung/reifegrad-check)[KnowledgeIT metricsDefinitions and formulas read the same way across the company.](/en/it-beratung/kennzahlen) Back to the field [IT Strategy and Steering](/en/it-beratung/it-strategie-und-steuerung) Rt Written by [Redaktion techport.ai](/ueber-uns), IT-Beratung Mehr als 15 Jahre Erfahrung in IT-Projekten des Mittelstands, Auswahl und Einführung von Unternehmenssoftware, Aufbau von IT-Betrieb und Informationssicherheit in wachsenden Organisationen. [More about us](/en/ueber-uns) More from techport.ai [ Software Custom process software for mid-sized companies. ](/en/loesungen)[ HR consulting People processes and the systems behind them. ](/en/hr-beratung)[ IT maturity check Ten minutes to a clear position. ](/en/it-beratung/reifegrad-check)[ HR maturity check 24 statements, a result per field. ](/en/hr-beratung/reifegrad-check)[ Funding BAFA grant plus more than 50 programmes for delivery. ](/en/foerderung)[ Process in practice How workflows become reliable software. ](/en/sop-praxis)[ Data and AI Analysis, forecasts and assistance systems. ](/en/daten-ki)[ About us The people behind techport.ai. ](/en/ueber-uns)