IT strategy consulting services aren't new, but with the rate at which every business seems to seek them these days, it's easy to wonder what you're missing if you don't have an IT strategy consultant on board. The IT strategy consulting market is projected to grow at 4.18% annually, topping $92 billion by 2029. That kind of momentum suggests two things: decision-makers are following a trend and solving real problems. In this guide, we explain what IT strategy consulting is, why your business might need it, how to recognize the right moment to invest, and how to choose a partner who delivers.
What is tailored IT strategy consulting?
Tailored IT strategy consulting is the process of aligning technology with business objectives. During the process, the strategy consultant works closely with business leaders to develop a comprehensive strategy that connects systems, workflows, and tools to actual business goals.
The consulting process is structured around:
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Understanding your business,
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Identifying gaps, and
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Delivering tailored strategies that align technology initiatives with business aims.
Effective IT strategy consulting does not only align technology solutions with business goals, but also plays a critical role in driving business growth.
7 reasons why you need tailored IT strategy consulting services
1. Your tech spend isn't delivering measurable business value
Here's a snapshot of your situation: IT budgets keep growing, but the results are hard to quantify. New systems are in place, workflows have been automated, but the business metrics (e.g., efficiency, profitability, responsiveness) aren’t improving. This is what happens when technology is purchased without a clear plan for how it supports business goals—ROI becomes impossible to track.
You need a plan to track ROI. An IT strategy consultant helps define that plan. Since the consulting process focuses on aligning technology initiatives with business goals from the start, your spend will eventually be proactive and measurable.
2. Your IT infrastructure can’t keep up with your evolving business strategy
Your business is moving forward while the systems underneath it are not. That tension builds up in ways you notice: slow rollouts, manual patches, and growing backlogs. This experience is completely normal. As business needs evolve, the pressure on legacy infrastructure increases.
Here, strategy consulting services help reframe infrastructure decisions through the lens of business strategy. The right IT strategy focuses on flexibility and alignment, not just upgrades for their own sake.
3. Operational silos and incompatible systems are slowing execution
Disconnected systems lead to duplicated work, inconsistent data, and slow responses. When each department optimizes its systems for its own needs, the organization loses sight of how those parts should work together. As a result, execution suffers, especially in situations where cross-functional coordination is vital.
Fortunately, IT strategy consultants help organisations map workflows across business units and align technology with business strategies, so teams collaborate instead of work around each other.
4. Growth is exposing cracks in scalability, security, and performance
If hiring picks up, workload increases, and systems start failing in places you didn’t expect, they’re signs that your existing setup wasn’t built to scale. If left unaddressed, these issues compound quickly and will eventually threaten your business's stability.
Developing an IT strategy that supports growth means identifying and resolving those pressure points early. A strategy consultant may work with your internal teams to evaluate what can scale, what needs to change, and how to protect performance as the business expands.
5. Internal teams are stuck in maintenance mode instead of driving change
When every day is spent troubleshooting, there’s no space to think beyond the next fix. Teams focus on keeping systems functional, not on improving how the business works. That dynamic stalls progress, causing you to waste time and lose direction.
This is where the best IT strategy consultants can help. By supporting your business with a strategy that prioritizes outcomes over upkeep, consulting services offer a reset from operational drag to forward movement.
6. Your responses to risks are in bits and pieces
Over time, your business has to comply with more legal and sector-specific requirements to protect your customers and systems from evolving security threats and to keep your operations running smoothly. Unfortunately, your responses are piecemeal or scattered. Only a few of them are built into a coordinated long-term strategy.
Effective IT strategy development—with the help of an IT strategy consultant—brings consistency to risk management, rather than relying on short-term fixes. This enables organizations facing new business challenges to overcome them while staying on track.
7. You lack strategic IT leadership but aren’t ready for a full-time CIO
Not every business can justify adding a senior technology executive, but that doesn’t make the need for high-level guidance any less real. Technology decisions still have to support your business, and someone still has to make them strategically.
In these cases, partnering with an IT strategy consultant is often the most practical approach. A strategy consultant plays a crucial role in driving business success by bridging the gap between business and technology, without committing to a permanent hire.
What does an IT strategy consultant or an IT strategy consulting firm do?
If you’re considering hiring an IT strategy consultant, here’s a summary of how they help drive your business forward.
1. Evaluates how well your current systems support business goals
An IT strategy consultant reviews the systems, tools, and infrastructure you already have for performance and relevance. The goal of this auditing is to assess how your tech supports or blocks business processes, and how well it connects to your overarching business goals.
A good consultant understands that strategy is only useful if it starts from facts, not assumptions. And in IT strategy consulting, this initial clarity sets the foundation for everything that follows.
2. Identifies gaps between business strategy and technical execution
Even with clear plans, delivery can fall apart when strategy and systems drift apart. To prevent this, an IT strategy consulting firm looks for disconnects between what the business is trying to achieve and how technology is actually being used. These are often the root cause of missed targets, rework, and stalled initiatives.
From our experience, IT consulting involves identifying the reasons behind those gaps, not just naming them. This step links your tech stack back to your overall business strategy, making sure the right people, platforms, and processes are aligned with what matters most.
3. Builds a technology roadmap aligned with your business priorities
Without a roadmap, your team makes decisions in isolation. That’s how you end up with redundant tools, reactive spending, and no clear direction.
IT strategy consulting services develop roadmaps that bring order to this. The best IT strategy consultants sequence projects by priority and impact. They tie each item to actual business needs and ground projects in your current capabilities. The end game is to build an IT strategy that’s actually executable.
4. Recommends tailored IT strategies
A roadmap means little if the recommended solutions don’t fit your business realities. The right IT strategy consultant for your business will recommend technology that suits your structure, workflows, and goals.
5. Clarifies ownership, accountability, and decision-making in tech strategy
One common issue inside growing companies is that no one knows who’s making what call. The CIO defers to business. The business defers to IT. These handoffs make it difficult to complete projects and best deadlines.
An IT strategy consultant may come in and reset the frame, ascertaining who does what—and with which technology—within the team.
6. Supports implementation across business units and teams
Too many strategies break on execution. The work looks great on paper, but no one’s equipped to drive it forward. This is why IT strategy consulting services go beyond planning.
After the IT strategy is defined by the IT strategy consultant, they support implementation through vendor coordination, internal team alignment, or resolving conflicts across business units.
7. Ensures your technology strategy can adapt to change
Thanks to shifting markets and evolving priorities, what made sense last quarter may not hold next year. Changing business needs are a constant.
The right IT strategy consultant builds systems and structures that can flex without breaking, and tying each initiative to goals that remain relevant, even as the details change.
When the strategy is aligned with how your business actually changes, it becomes a long-term enabler of business progress.
Early signs you need IT strategy consulting services
Oftentimes, the signs that indicate a need for IT strategy consulting services start to creep in early. In the table below, we go over 8 of the most common signs and what they mean for your business.
Here's how 3 brands have leveraged IT strategy consulting services for business success
These companies worked with IT strategy consultants to fix problems such as slow delivery, disjointed systems, poor use of data. Each one used IT strategy consulting services to connect technology with business priorities and get results that stuck. Below is a summary of what they did and the results they enjoyed.
Brand #1: Volkswagen
The problem:
New cars were taking too long to develop because tams worked in separate departments—some on hardware, others on software—and didn’t coordinate well. That made it hard to improve digital features or respond to customer feedback.
How IT strategy consulting helped:
Consultants helped reorganize teams so engineers could work together on complete features, like battery systems or self-driving capabilities. They simplified the development process and introduced faster ways to test and launch updates.
The results:
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Car development time dropped by 25%.
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Volkswagen began releasing electric models every year and added features faster by shifting focus from hardware to digital systems.
Brand #2: Domino’s
The problem:
Since Domino's ordering systems weren’t built for online sales, customers had to use different apps and websites depending on location. Internally, teams made their own tech decisions without a shared plan.
How IT strategy consulting helped:
Consultants helped Domino’s create one clear digital strategy. They rebuilt the brand's app, set up AI tools to track orders and delivery times, and gave all teams a single roadmap to follow.
The results:
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Over 80% of orders now come through digital channels.
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Delivery-time accuracy jumped from 75% to 95%.
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Customers can order by app, smart TV, voice assistant, or even text.
Brand #3: Starbucks
The problem:
Starbucks had millions of loyalty customers, but wasn’t using the data well. The mobile app worked, but it wasn’t used for store planning, marketing, or service design.
How IT strategy consulting helped:
Consultants helped the company connect app data to business decisions like where to open new stores or how to personalize offers. They also improved the app’s features and made it easier to use.
The results:
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Loyalty membership grew 30% in one year.
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Starbucks opened more drive-thru and pickup-only stores based on real customer behavior.
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The app became one of the top mobile payment tools in the U.S.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the meaning of IT strategy?
A: An IT strategy is a clear plan for how a business will use technology to support its goals. It outlines which tools to invest in, how to manage systems, and how tech decisions connect to overall business direction. In IT strategy consulting, that plan is developed with expert support to make sure each step delivers value.
Q: Why is IT strategy important in business?
A: Because without it, tech decisions become guesswork. A solid IT strategy connects technology with your business goals, helping you reduce waste, scale faster, and improve performance. It plays a key role in driving business success by making sure every investment supports real outcomes. That’s why many companies now use IT strategy consulting services to guide decision-making.
Q: How do you develop an IT strategy?
A: Start by understanding your current systems, your business needs, and your long-term goals. Then define the gaps, prioritize technology initiatives, and set a timeline with clear metrics. IT strategy consultants help clients build a strategy that’s technically sound and tailored to your unique needs, budget, and internal capacity.
What are the four objectives of an IT strategic plan?
Most strategies aim to:
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Align with business goals
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Improve efficiency and reduce costs
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Support scalability and innovation
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Manage risk and ensure continuity
A strategy is essential when you need to connect technology with your business goals in a way that works across departments and supports broader business outcomes.
What is an example of an IT strategy?
Let’s say a retail company wants to grow online sales. A practical IT strategy might include:
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Replacing its outdated e-commerce platform with one that supports mobile shopping
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Integrating customer data across stores and digital channels
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Using analytics to recommend products and adjust pricing
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Automating fulfillment to reduce delivery times
Each of these steps ties technology to drive business growth with clear priorities, budget, and timelines. That’s the difference between buying tech and using tech to transform your business.
Choosing the right IT strategy consultant for your business
When selecting a consulting partner, you need to choose one has a deep understanding of your business. The right IT strategy consulting firm for you will bring clarity to where your system falls short, and what it needs to move forward, thus promoting business continuity.
At Devōt, we help clients to understand their business, align technology initiatives with business objectives, and deliver solutions that drive business growth. If you’re focused on achieving your business objectives, we’ll help you build the technology for that—with the right priorities, the right execution, and a clear return on effort.
