Do You Regularly Review Technology and Business Objectives Together to Ensure They Remain Aligned?

As an entrepreneur scaling a tech-driven SME, one of your primary concerns should be ensuring that your technology initiatives and business objectives are working in harmony. It's easy to assume that the two are automatically aligned—after all, every tech investment you make is intended to benefit the business, right? Unfortunately, as many leaders discover the hard way, the relationship between technology and business isn't always as straightforward as it seems.

Over time, especially in fast-growing companies, technology development can diverge from business goals, resulting in wasted resources, missed opportunities, and investments that don’t generate the expected returns. To avoid this, a regular, structured review process that evaluates both your business objectives and technology strategy in tandem is essential. This ongoing alignment not only prevents resource misallocation but also positions technology as a driver of business growth, innovation, and competitive advantage.

Here’s why you should regularly review and align these two crucial components, and how to do it effectively.

The Risk of Decoupling Technology from Business Strategy

One of the most significant risks in rapidly growing companies is the decoupling of technology from business strategy. As you scale, new opportunities emerge, and the strategic landscape evolves. Business goals shift—perhaps you’re expanding into new markets, diversifying your product offering, or increasing customer engagement. If your technology strategy doesn't evolve in parallel, you risk developing solutions that are no longer fit for purpose.

Misalignment between technology and business objectives can manifest in several ways. You might find your development team working on features that don’t align with current market demands, or perhaps your infrastructure is overbuilt for now but underprepared for the future. The pain of this misalignment often materialises through wasted efforts, delayed projects, and ultimately, slowed growth​.

For example, I've worked with startups where the technology team, focused on technical excellence, designed sophisticated software that was perfect on paper but didn’t meet immediate business needs. While the tech was impressive, it didn't support the company's growth priorities, such as enhancing customer experience or improving operational efficiency. This disconnect led to a lot of backtracking, frustrated teams, and unnecessary expenses.

How Regular Reviews Can Help

Regular reviews of both technology and business objectives create opportunities to recalibrate and ensure alignment. The key here is to set up a structured, recurring review process, ideally every quarter, though the timing can depend on your company's pace of growth and the volatility of your market.

These reviews serve several important purposes:

Reaffirm Strategic Priorities: Business objectives evolve. You may have entered new markets, adjusted your customer acquisition strategy, or responded to competitive pressures since the last review. Revisiting your goals in light of these changes ensures that your technology efforts remain focused on what’s most important. Without this review, there’s a risk that your tech team continues down a path that no longer serves your company's core priorities.

Assess Current Technology Investments: During these reviews, take stock of ongoing technology projects. Are they still aligned with your business strategy? Are they delivering the expected return on investment (ROI)? Are there emerging technologies that could better serve your evolving objectives? This checkpoint allows you to course-correct before any misalignment becomes costly.

Improve Cross-Team Communication: A significant benefit of these reviews is that they facilitate communication between the technology and business teams. Too often, these departments operate in silos, which leads to a lack of shared understanding. During reviews, business leaders gain insights into what the tech team is working on and why, while the tech team better understands how their efforts support broader business objectives​. This collaboration fosters a shared sense of purpose and can even spark innovative ideas that wouldn’t have emerged within departmental silos.

Practical Steps for Conducting Regular Reviews

Now that we’ve established the importance of regularly reviewing technology and business objectives together, let’s explore how to do it practically. Implementing an effective review process requires structure, transparency, and a focus on actionable outcomes.

Create a Cross-Functional Review Team

The review team should consist of key stakeholders from both the technology and business sides. This might include the CEO, CTO (or a fractional CTO), department heads, product managers, and tech leads. The goal is to ensure that both perspectives—business and technology—are adequately represented and that decisions are made collaboratively.

Set a Regular Cadence

Establish a review cadence that fits your business needs. Quarterly reviews are a good starting point, as they provide enough time for progress between meetings while still maintaining flexibility to adapt to changes. Some companies, particularly in hyper-growth phases, might benefit from more frequent check-ins.

Evaluate the Business Environment

Each review should start with a reassessment of the business environment. What has changed since the last review? Have new competitors entered the market? Has customer behaviour shifted? Have your revenue streams evolved? Answering these questions provides context for evaluating whether your current technology strategy still aligns with business needs.

Review Current Technology Initiatives

Once you have a clear picture of the business landscape, evaluate your ongoing technology projects. Which initiatives are delivering value? Which ones are falling short? Ask your tech team to demonstrate how current projects support the company's strategic priorities. Be open to the idea that some projects may need to be scrapped or pivoted if they no longer serve the business.

Consider Future Trends

It’s not just about the here and now. Consider how future trends—both in technology and the market—could affect your business strategy. Is there an emerging technology that could give you a competitive edge? Are there upcoming regulatory changes that could necessitate adjustments to your tech infrastructure? Keeping an eye on the future during these reviews ensures that your technology strategy is proactive, not just reactive​.

Set Clear Objectives for the Next Period

Conclude each review by setting clear, actionable objectives for both the business and technology teams. Define specific outcomes that align with your overarching strategy, and make sure there’s mutual agreement on timelines, resource allocation, and success metrics. This ensures that everyone walks away from the review with a shared understanding of what needs to be achieved in the next period.

The Role of Leadership in Ensuring Alignment

As the leader of a scaling SME, your role is crucial in driving this alignment. Your vision sets the tone for both business and technology strategies, and your involvement in these reviews signals their importance to the rest of the company. Regular reviews shouldn’t be seen as a box-ticking exercise, but rather as an opportunity to reorient the organisation toward its most pressing goals.

One challenge I frequently observe in early-stage companies is a lack of senior technology leadership, which can make it difficult to maintain alignment. Without a dedicated CTO, technology decisions may lack the strategic oversight needed to ensure they serve the broader business objectives​. If your company is in this situation, consider bringing in a fractional CTO to guide these reviews. A seasoned technology leader can offer the experience and external perspective necessary to align tech initiatives with business strategy effectively.

Maintaining Agility Through Alignment

One of the most significant advantages of regularly reviewing technology and business objectives together is that it keeps your company agile. When technology and business strategy are in sync, you can respond more quickly to market changes, new opportunities, and unforeseen challenges. You avoid the sunk costs of misaligned projects and are better positioned to innovate in ways that directly benefit the business.

For example, a fintech company I worked with realised during a review that their technology team had been focusing heavily on backend improvements, believing that scalability was the company's most pressing concern. However, during the review process, the leadership team identified a growing demand for a more user-friendly mobile experience among their customer base. By realigning the tech strategy with this insight, the company was able to quickly pivot, redesign its app interface, and increase user engagement by over 25%.

The Long-Term Payoff

The long-term benefits of aligning technology and business strategy are clear. Companies that regularly review and adjust their strategies are better able to allocate resources efficiently, avoid costly missteps, and stay focused on the initiatives that drive real business growth.

More importantly, these companies foster a culture of collaboration and shared purpose. When the entire organisation—business and technology teams alike—works together toward a common goal, innovation thrives. Teams are more engaged, leadership has greater clarity, and the company is well-positioned for sustained success.

In conclusion, the regular review of technology and business objectives is not just a best practice but a necessity for scaling SMEs. As you grow, the risks of misalignment increase, but so do the opportunities for technology to serve as a powerful engine for growth. By making alignment a continuous, structured process, you can ensure that every tech investment you make directly contributes to achieving your business objectives. In this fast-paced, competitive landscape, that alignment may well be your secret weapon.