Many companies are beginning their 2027 strategic planning. If you’ve been a company that hasn’t incorporated the technology side into your planning, I am going to show you an easy way to get the ball rolling for next year.

Strategic planning isn’t just budgets and best guesses, it should be the time when you take a step back from the day-to-day and review how your company is succeeding at its mission. If your mission is to create a world where there are more bicycle riders, then you should be aligning everything you do within the company to achieve that goal. A good strategic plan reviews the environment around which the mission can succeed. So it’s not just about how many bikes you sell, it should be about ensuring those bikes are being used.

That might look like a marketing campaign to educate your community on the health benefits of riding. It could be working with local governments to expand trail systems. Further, it could be sponsoring bike riding events that get people out and “on the saddle”. The point is, there are a variety of ways to advance your mission, and the result of doing that means more opportunities to sell bikes and make money.

Technology fits into a strategic plan by enabling the mission of the company. A CIO is an expert at knowing the capabilities and limitations of technology and precisely allocating it to multiply your mission. In our example, a CIO might suggest an analytics dashboard to measure the success of each campaign, and to include all relevant sales, repairs, and upgrade options throughout your store. This could enhance your decision making on what bikes to stock, warranties to provide, and events to hold. (just to name a few) A technology strategy could enable you to accept payments at pop-up stores and allow customers to ride away with the bikes they’ve tried.

Technology enablement could automate the customer experience to solicit feedback, provide maintenance notices, and make scheduling a breeze. What a CIO can bring to the table is not just more aligned spend and better risk mitigation. A CIO that has your mission in mind is someone that can create a better experience for your employees and customers. They can reduce the friction in company processes and they can ultimately enable your brand to stand out.

This newsletter (and future community!) is my mission to help SMB’s and tech leaders Think Like A CIO.

I love this mission so much, because I get to multiply other peoples’ mission. If I can take a boring subject that most people avoid and make it relatable, then I can help add more bike trails, create safer construction sites, and manufacture more American goods. So to help out my subscribers, I have created a Dead Simple CIO Strategy guide for 2027.

Using this guide, you will be able to better align technology with your mission and spend on technology not just to keep things running, but to multiply your business impact.

Subscribers can download the guide and worksheet below. 👇 It’s free to subscribe.