IT Strategic Planning

Turn strategy into results. We help you align business goals and IT delivery through pragmatic roadmaps with clear priorities, budgets, and KPIs. The outcome: board-ready plans that cut waste, reduce risk, and speed time-to-benefit—while tracking measurable value after go-live.

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Expertise

Align strategy and execution for measurable business impact.

Technology can drive growth, efficiency, and speed—but only when strategy, governance, and execution stay aligned. Many organizations invest heavily yet struggle to capture real value. We help leaders focus, test decisions, and set the guardrails that keep transformation on track. With decades of experience in IT strategy and delivery, Resource Data helps you reduce waste, modernize platforms, and make sure technology delivers the business outcomes you expect.

IT Strategy & Roadmap Development

The right IT strategy can turn ambition into a funded roadmap that leaders can deliver with confidence. However, IT strategy isn’t just planning. It requires defining capabilities, target architecture, governance, and security standards that guide execution. An effective strategy helps you clarify priorities, align spend to business value, and reduce overlapping investments. With a sequenced roadmap, measurable KPIs, and value-based prioritization, you gain focused investments, lower risk, and faster realization of strategic outcomes.

Digital Transformation & Modernization Strategy

Modernize core platforms and ways of working to unlock growth and reduce cost. We turn strategy into actionable priorities, aligning products, processes, and technology with the capabilities needed to support them. After defining the target state across governance, security, and architecture, we shape a sequenced portfolio with clear owners, budgets, and KPIs. The result is a focused, multi-horizon roadmap that accelerates innovation, manages risk, and delivers measurable value.

Portfolio Rationalization & Cost Optimization

Cut IT run costs while protecting service levels and strategic capacity. Resource Data applies financial baselining, FinOps practices, license audits, and demand analysis to target waste across applications, cloud environments, and vendor contracts. We focus on clear choices—not blanket cuts—by defining a rationalization plan with keep/retire/replace decisions, renegotiation targets, decommission schedules, and cost-to-serve dashboards. Governance and security controls guide every step, cutting cost, consolidating platforms, and freeing capacity for innovation.

Vendor & Platform Strategy

Choose the right platforms and partners with confidence and clear economics. We lead an objective, vendor-agnostic selection process built on capability mapping, market scans, and RFI/RFP management. We validate options through proofs of concept, financial analysis, and assessments of architecture, integration, compliance, and security. The outcome is a defensible shortlist, weighted scorecards, and an operating model with guardrails and an exit strategy, enabling faster, lower-risk decisions that fit.

Business Case & Benefits Realization Planning

Fund the right initiatives and realize benefits on schedule. Resource Data builds investment-grade business cases using financial models such as TCO, cost-to-serve, and scenario analysis tied to NPV and ROI. Benefits realization is tracked during delivery and beyond go-live. Stage gates, value dashboards, and change plans guide decisions, provide transparency, and measure value realized.

Our Clients

Hundreds of clients.
Thousands of strategic projects.

“Resource Data was able to expertly lead us through this project. The documentation they developed was critical to the project’s success and a major step forward for our program. We were confident about being in the best possible position to make informed decisions.”
David Smith, Program Manager, WA State Department of Agriculture

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

Creating a Clear Path for Digital Collaboration

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) manages the state’s lands and waters, supports outdoor recreation, and serves communities across Minnesota. With thousands of employees and countless documents moving daily, the agency’s digital tools had evolved into a patchwork of systems and storage methods. Over time, these silos slowed work and made collaboration difficult.

To address the challenge, DNR launched the Digital Storage and Collaboration (DiSC) Project—an eight-month effort to understand how teams shared, stored, and managed information. The assessment explored how effectively existing tools supported collaboration within the agency and with external partners. From this work, Resource Data delivered a clear roadmap outlining practical steps to align digital platforms, reduce duplication, and create a cohesive framework where systems and teams could work together seamlessly.

Alaska Department of Transportation

Building a Strategic Framework for Technology Planning

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF) manages highways, airports, harbors, and a ferry system connecting communities across the state. With dozens of aging systems and inconsistent governance, the department faced challenges in prioritizing projects and planning for future needs.

Working in partnership with DOT&PF, Resource Data developed an information systems strategic business plan to guide technology decisions across the organization. The team interviewed more than 80 staff members, identified key challenges, and outlined recommendations for governance and resource management. A subsequent solution analysis evaluated tools to support portfolio management and a service catalog. All were woven into a three-year roadmap.

This strategy equipped DOT&PF with a clear, sustainable framework for managing technology investments, unifying processes, and strengthening service delivery across Alaska’s vital transportation infrastructure.

Alaska Psychiatric Institute

Achieving a Paperless Vision: Expanding and Upgrading an EMR System

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API) aimed to move toward a paperless medical records system by enhancing its electronic medical records (EMR). While the existing modules met basic needs, they lacked the functionality required for federal compliance and long-term telehealth.

Resource Data created a multi-year IT strategic plan to prioritize projects, assess risks, and set schedules. The team managed major EMR upgrades, integrated outpatient record sharing systems, added downtime reporting for medicine administration, and developed a disaster recovery plan.

By collaborating closely with stakeholders, API advanced its vision of paperless records, boosting efficiency, and improving patient care delivery.

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Major Food Processor

Establishing Governance and Structure During a Critical Transition

After separating from a larger company, a global leader in frozen potato products needed to quickly establish a new IT department. Without defined governance, business analysis processes, or clear business architecture, the company risked inefficiencies and misalignment during a critical transition.

A Resource Data business analyst helped the management team establish IT governance standards, document templates, and a SharePoint site. The process included creating a business analysis strategy that trained staff and aligned contractors. Through this effort, the analyst created a detailed capability catalog to support long-term planning.

With these foundations in place, Lamb Weston gained structure and consistency across IT governance and analysis. This approach laid out the groundwork for smoother project delivery and a scalable framework for future growth.

Calista Corporation

Building a Technology Strategy that Keeps Pace with Growth

An Alaska Native regional corporation representing Southwest Alaskan Native shareholders oversees more than 30 companies spanning construction, energy, real estate, and other sectors. Because buying and selling businesses is central to its growth strategy, the organization needed technology that could adapt quickly without adding unnecessary rules, paperwork, or tools.

Resource Data worked with leaders and subject-matter experts to assess how current systems and processes supported day-to-day operations. Through interviews and workflow reviews, the team identified constraints, gaps, and areas where technology could better align with business needs.

These insights shaped a strategic IT roadmap that clarified where to modernize, what to streamline, and how to position technology to support future acquisitions. With this direction in place, the corporation is better equipped to evolve its environment as its portfolio shifts, ensuring technology remains an enabler of growth rather than a barrier.

Real-World Solutions

Spend Smarter.
Fund What Matters.

IT budgets should create business value. We help leaders see where money goes, how it performs, and where it should work harder. By benchmarking costs, modeling capabilities, and aligning funding to measurable outcomes, you can turn IT spend into a clear strategy for growth and control.

Optimize IT Spend

Benchmark Run Costs Against Peers

Gain a clear, defensible target for IT spend by benchmarking run costs. Know where to cut, where to invest, and how much value you can unlock. Resource Data maps your cost baseline to show where money goes and how it drives business value. We normalize cloud, labor, and vendor costs, compare unit costs to industry data, and pinpoint improvement opportunities. Then we set right-cost targets and actions that reduce run costs, strengthen financial control, and free funding for growth.

Prioritize IT Planning

Model Target Capabilities Before Spend

Make confident funding decisions by modeling target capabilities first. Resource Data assesses current and future capabilities across people, processes, data, and platforms, then shapes an operating model tied to measurable outcomes. Focused working sessions define the target state and produce a sequenced roadmap with clear guardrails. The outcome is a prioritized investment plan with expected benefits and value baselines that guide smarter funding and faster progress.

Define Service Tiers

Reduce Run Costs with Service Tiers

Cut IT operating costs without eroding service by aligning to what the business truly needs. Our experts will help you define service tiers based on criticality, recovery objectives, and response expectations, then maps incidents, requests, and platforms to the right level. We optimize SLAs, shift routine work to self-service and automation, and align vendors and cloud options to each tier. The result: a service catalog, cost-to-serve model, and governance plan that reduce run costs and free capacity for change.

Leverage Product Councils

Drive Clarity from Idea to Backlog

Speed decisions and reduce noise by centralizing intake through a product council. We help build a clear path from idea to backlog with standardized intake, clear decision rights, and value and risk scoring tied to OKRs and team capacity. Once governance is in place, a council charter defines cadence and performance measures. Workflows integrate with tools like ServiceNow, Jira, or ADO, and dashboards track proposals and decisions to support alignment and a strategy-led backlog.

Ariel Gibson

Service Area Lead, IT Business Consulting

Ariel’s impressive resume spans over 20 years in information technology and project management. During her 10 years as a leader within Resource Data, she has risen from a senior project manager to shareholder, to director of sales and marketing, and Juneau Director.

She received her MBA from the University of Alaska and has earned certifications for project management, organizational change management, Scrum Master, and ITIL. She is a proven leader, experienced in managing change while remaining results- and employee-focused.

Talk to Ariel

Our IT Business Consulting Services

Power smarter business with intentional technology.