7 Ingredients for a Successful IT Transformation
CEOs are feeling the pressure to deploy the right technologies to empower workers, drive product differentiation and meet customer demands in a seamless experience. To compete in a digital economy that accelerates with new innovations on a global scale, organizations must find ways to modernize its IT infrastructure in a cost-efficient way.
According to International Data Corporation, technologies enabling digital transformation will drive nearly 75 percent of IT spending by 2019. But any IT leader can tell you that existing systems that house critical data cannot be replaced overnight. Organizations must transition to the delivery of modern IT services and applications for its business and operations. That’s where IT transformation comes in.
IT transformation creates a path for organizations to transform digitally and optimize costs so the company can move towards a digital transformation. It’s a journey of investments in technologies and services that dramatically shifts the use of IT systems in business processes to reach business goals. It’s also a process that requires an investment in time, talent and planning. We’ve prepared a checklist of requirements to help with readiness.
- Set a clear vision. What will the future look like? How will automating IT processes fit into the context of everyone’s role across the enterprise? The motivation for IT transformation needs to be clear for what you want your business to achieve. It’s critical you identify areas of risk and areas that are lagging in performance to set your priorities. Establishing a coherent vision is an important first step in mapping a strategy that will reach goals.
- Clarify strategy and governance. Define the relationship between business and IT and formalize governance policies. There should be a single leader coordinating this effort with decision-making mechanisms in place. This is someone who knows the organization and will develop a detailed plan, oversee the transformation, monitor implementation and inform senior executives – including the CIO – of progress and setbacks. The longer the transformation drags on, the less return on investment for the organization. Get a structure in place to manage the transition.
- Build talent. Identify current and anticipated needs for a staff that will be lacking in certain skills after implementation. Utilize human resources to build talent from the inside and attract new talent from the outside who have the technology skills your team requires. By having the right leadership and talent in place you’re ensuring your staff will also be at peak performance.
- Identify the right technologies for your work environment. Evaluate specific infrastructure workloads and siloed applications that are pain points for the organization (e.g. underperforming, difficult to scale, management of security and compliance). Each pain point will affect your organization differently than another. Identify the workloads and applications that will benefit most from new technologies and processes and bring value to your business.
- Find the right partner. Finding a strong partner that understands the capability of your organization is important in delivering outcomes. This includes conducting an assessment to gain insight into the current state of your IT systems and business processes to develop a roadmap to reach the end. Partners bring an expertise to affect business change, bring stability to IT operations, make IT agile and digitize operations.
- Develop a deployment strategy. Many organizations do a good job with design, but fold under the weight of implementation. The methods for executing the transformation should be formalized and include pilot exercises for testing. An expert partner can deliver implementation solutions with best practices to ensure a smooth transition and delivery. Plus, they will use e-learning classrooms and onsite training to help teams learn and adapt.
- Motivate and communicate. IT transformation is a system overhaul for the organization, so solutions must integrate across the entire business infrastructure, including with employees. The human element makes the difference between success and failure. Effective communication with employees has a strong influence on motivation, performance and productivity. Managing the morale of everyone affected by the transformation will ease conflicts when they arise and strengthen teams.
Today’s digital economy requires companies to meet customer demands ahead of the competition. With IT transformation, organizations can automate and accelerate the delivery of IT services and free up IT budget to move towards digital transformation. But before jumping in, use our checklist to build a solid infrastructure foundation that has the capacity to deliver automated and cloud services.
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