Chapter 7: Summary and Outlook

This article series contains my master’s thesis “Outsourcing the IT Strategy Development Process in Austrian Small and Micro Enterprises”, which I wrote as part of the university program Management in Information and Business Technologies at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt.

1. Chapter: Introduction
2. Chapter: Definitions
3. Chapter: Relevant Environments of Small and Micro Enterprises in Austria
4. Chapter: Strategic Goals and Critical Success Factors of an IT Strategy
5. Chapter: Strategic Courses of Action for Small and Micro Enterprises Regarding the Use of Information Technology
6. Chapter: IT Controlling in Small and Micro Businesses
7. Chapter: Summary and Outlook

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7. Summary and Outlook

The author of this thesis has worked for an IT services company for years and mostly looks after small and micro enterprises in the German-speaking region. Experience from this work still shows a lack of importance given to the topics of IT strategy and strategy development in Austrian small and micro enterprises. The main reasons for the slow development are a lack of know-how and limited resources in these companies. Because of the large number of small businesses in Austria, IT service providers have many opportunities in this area.

With the ongoing change of IT from a cost factor to an “enabler” of new business models, the responsibility of an IT service provider toward the service recipient also grows. In small and micro enterprises, the service provider will in future no longer be responsible only for the smooth basic operation of the IT systems. It must additionally support the service recipient’s management proactively in further developing the business processes, supply input for governance, compliance and risk questions and regularly align the IT strategy with the corporate strategy. Using existing strategy tools often requires resources or expertise that small businesses don’t have. ITIL, for example, provides a comprehensive framework for the IT strategy area and beyond, but its implementation overwhelms most small companies.

During the research, it became obvious that there is currently very little literature dealing with the special challenges of strategy development in small companies. A definitive solution to the problem described could therefore not yet be found. Many of the arguments put forward do speak in favor of support from an experienced consultant in developing (IT) strategies, as this corresponds to an economical and promising approach.