5 ways IT leaders can deliver real value in a rapidly changing landscape

It’s the perfect storm out there: new technologies emerge at breakneck speed, technological innovation is outpacing the ability of regulators to keep up, and business expectations for “innovation” grow higher by the day.

At the same time, IT is under pressure to control costs, reduce risk and deliver tangible outcomes with every new technological deployment.

It’s a tough balancing act. Technical debt piles up, release cycles get shorter and IT budgets? Well, they’re under more scrutiny than ever. Meanwhile, business leaders expect IT to prove ROI beyond just keeping the lights on.

A BCG survey of 403 global businesses revealed a concerning reality: over 30% of technology projects exceed budget or deadlines, with nearly one in five respondents claiming unsatisfactory outcomes more than 50% of the time.

But here’s the thing: it’s not usually a technical problem. The same survey points to three key culprits: a lack of alignment between IT and business objectives, unrealistic timelines, and insufficient financial and development resources.

So, what does this tell us?

The biggest challenges IT leaders face aren’t technical, they’re strategic

Most IT projects don’t fail because the technology isn’t good enough; they fail because there’s a strategic disconnect, and it puts IT leaders into a difficult situation. Businesses often underestimate the complexity of what they are asking IT to achieve, and don’t fully understand the timescales involved in delivering a ‘complete’ project or the return they can expect to receive from it. These unrealistic expectations compound other issues that IT teams are facing – long development cycles from partners, legacy technology limitations, pressure to prove ROI – and the resulting disconnect can erode business faith in IT.

To overcome this, IT leaders need to be ready to share their vision for the project, explain complexity and timescales at the start, and demonstrate how the investment will deliver value, essentially laying out the commercial value of the project and illustrating it at every phase. Which is easier said than done – especially if you are working to long, drawn out developments that don’t deliver anything for 2-3 years.

These 5 steps help IT leaders to navigate this complex strategic process, reduce time to value (and cut long development cycles into manageable, reactive sprints) and drive measurable return from every technology innovation.

1. Start with value, not trends or technology

Too often, companies fall into the trap of investing in technology without fully aligning it with objectives. Or, technology is introduced that aligns perfectly with the business’ current objectives, but once it has been delivered 2-3 years down the line, it’s already at risk of becoming obsolete.

‘Business first, technology second’ is a good mantra for IT leaders to apply to every project. This isn’t just about aligning with a commercial objective: it’s thinking about how the organisation operates, how it is projected to change, whether priorities might shift, how much flexibility is needed.

Start by defining measurable business impact. Set clear KPIs from the outset; these become the north star, ensuring that every IT investment is directly tied to commercial results. Value comes from clarity. What performance improvements are you seeking from a new application or system? How much will it cost to implement? How quickly can you start showing results? What constitutes a positive return on investment? Without clear business value, IT spending is just overhead. With clear commercial goals, it’s a valuable resource packed with potential.

2. Build a shared vision across the organisation

IT initiatives often lag, overspend and underdeliver because they are perceived as isolated "tech programmes" rather than integral business initiatives. Once the value of a project is established, the next step is to align the vision.

This means actively engaging stakeholders from different departments, understanding their needs, and communicating how the project will address those needs in plain business terms, not technical jargon.

Too often, developers view success in terms of technical achievements, while business leaders focus on commercial goals. Software development falters when these perspectives clash. Technology teams prioritise architectural integrity, while business stakeholders measure progress in terms of features delivered and revenue returned. These two perspectives frequently knock heads.

A shared vision gives company-wide clarity on what you're building and why it matters. As a result, execution falls into place.

3. Viability. Get that in early

Enterprise IT environments come with hidden challenges, legacy systems, compliance requirements, and integration complexities. A great idea on paper can quickly unravel when faced with real-world implementation.

Prioritising early viability is key. Don't wait until the end of a project to find out if the software works. Test assumptions from day one using Minimum Viable Products (MVPs), prototypes, proofs of value (PoV), and small-scale experiments before committing to full-scale development.

This approach helps avoid costly missteps, keeps timelines in check, ensures feasibility and guarantees that IT investments are solving the right problems before it's too late. But be warned: a lot of development partners don’t take this approach, instead pushing risks into the later stages of development. The result is a project that whips along for the first three quarters, and stalls towards the end.

4. Embrace automation and accelerate your time-to-value

The traditional ‘craftsman approach’ to coding is too slow and expensive for today’s fast-paced market. It’s also difficult to maintain consistency, with manual coding resulting in different quality standards and more room for human error. Plus, it’s difficult to scale: labour intensive approaches are much less flexible and more expensive when you need to expand your approach or explore a new direction.

Automation is now essential to deliver real value with software. Next gen software development that utilises automation, powered by Gen AI, makes software projects faster, more agile, more cost effective and much more scalable – all without sacrificing quality and consistency. The velocity this brings to your build means that you can start demonstrating value quickly, gaining momentum as you move on to each use case.

5. Continuously verify benefit delivery at each stage of development

You’ve proved the value, vision and viability of your proposition. You’ve established an agile sprint methodology to maintain velocity during development. Now, you need to start proving the tangible benefit delivery – verifying working software as early as possible.

The best way to do this while maintaining that momentum is by delivering in the smallest increments. At GW, use a typical Agile approach, with a difference. We combine MVP with a Walking Skeleton, to create something that both demonstrates value of one aspect of the customer functionality and proves the architecture as soon as possible.

Why take this approach? Well, it forces the team to address risk and complexity early in the dev cycle, not at the end. Remember those projects that stall at the end we mentioned earlier? This is how we prevent that from happening. 

When you can easily demonstrate exactly how the technology contributes to specific business goals, the project transforms from a technical function into a commercial driver, raising support and excitement for the project on the next round of development.

Engineering for enterprise value, not just scale

Success isn’t just about building at scale, it’s about delivering business value at scale.

By focusing on measurable value first and foremost, creating a shared vision, testing viability early, maintaining momentum, and continuously verifying development with business objectives, IT leaders can move beyond technology management and become architects of meaningful, strategic transformation. Drawing from this experience, we’ve developed the V5 Framework, a structured approach to business-aligned IT success.

For over 30 years, Griffiths Waite has been at the forefront of delivering transformative software solutions for large-scale enterprise organisations. We've guided CTOs and technology leaders through digital transformations that have fundamentally changed how their businesses operate, compete and grow, which is why most of our clients have partnered with us for over a decade.

If you’re ready to pioneer, explore our guide: The V5 Framework: A commercial lens on transformative software development.