The Value-Aligned Technology Stack: A New Business Conversation

In the pandemic recession and beyond, CIOs are being asked to lead a new conversation with business and marketing executives about technology budgets and the role of technology in radically changing business. The old tech-planning playbooks won’t work now that technology is deeply embedded in every facet of business success. To stimulate the right conversation, we propose a new, value-aligned technology stack — foundational technologies, differentiating technologies, and agility technologies — based on the contribution each layer has to business success (recognizing that some technologies, security and data, for example, span the layers). This three-layer, business-value stack frames the technology conversations about strategy, vendors, and responsibilities in each layer. We believe this approach will make it easier to talk about the investment approach, optimization strategy, pace of change, roadmap, and ownership model in each layer. To learn more about how the value-aligned stack can help, please listen to our conversation, or schedule an inquiry with a Forrester analyst.