Modernising IT across the board
In 2016, an article by three senior partners at McKinsey and Company examined a case study involving end-to-end improvements in an organisation through its IT modernisation. The results highlighted multiple benefits. Some, such as the more rapid deployment of new services and increase in IT productivity, they could predict. Yet they also found an increase in employee motivation, and a dip the amount of defects in new software applications.
This should come as no surprise. Working with legacy systems causes considerable amounts of non-trivial issues in any sector. Such issues include low efficiency, rising maintenance costs, lack of skilled labour, and ultimately inability to deliver or innovate. Conversely, those enabled by more modern infrastructures will typically have more and better tools at their disposal to perform their tasks. The associated increase in productivity and satisfaction is almost tangible.
In addition to this, there are synergistic effects as well. Performing modernisation at an end-to-end scale also forces some hard looks at more than just budgets and implementation. For example, as an organisation you could have to to put critical controls in place to minimise the higher risks. In addition to this, altering many of your present processes, and coming up with a fair number of new ones would be necessary to account for the change in operations. And along with that, a lengthy training regimen to help familiarise your staff would probably also be a must if you want things to run as smoothly as possible.
The case for modernisation
If you are reading this, you are probably wondering why you should fork out loads of money in order to upgrade your legacy infrastructure that is still coping fine (most of the time), but the fact is that at some point you are going to be forced to make the change. So why not do it in an orderly fashion, with less pressure and glitches by planning ahead? Here are a few reasons why you should consider making the move now:
- When it comes to modernising your IT infrastructure, it isn’t always just about having the latest, greatest and shiniest hardware. The modernisation of your IT portfolio also involves processes, structures and, most importantly, people.
- Who doesn’t want to consistently be on the cutting edge? Moreover, we discover time and time again that modern technologies actually aid progress.
- By tying modernisation to your strategy, you’re helping both your capacity planning and your future services paradigm. A successful strategic roadmap is full of objectives, and the closer these are linked to the infrastructure that will eventually help them come to fruition, the smoother the road will be.
- Finally, by bringing the majority of your infrastructure to the technological forefront, you’ll more easily avoid pressures from digital disruptions in your industry. The reason for this is simple – modern infrastructure copes far better with the rapid strategic changes you use to mitigate the effects of such disruptions.
….by bringing the majority of your infrastructure to the technological forefront, you’ll more easily avoid pressures from digital disruptions in your industry.
Don’t forget to simplify
Not all of your modernisation has to be brand new. Sometimes a simple reduction in complexity is all you need to get you started. This also has the added benefit of reducing the number of factors you need to consider before a fully-fledged modernisation process begins.
A 2017 article on Gartner gave a handy roadmap for how to perform this with a 5-step process concerning server infrastructure. The process includes vital elements such as consolidation and automation. It also mentions bringing in more up-to-date offerings as part of the solution.
Simplicity has a knock-on effect in the direction of your human resources as well. Team members will be spending less effort on remembering which obsolete system is tied to what critical tasks, and more effort on creating better solutions. This sort of innovation has become a boon to survival. Doing what you can to make sure there is time for it will bode well for your organisation.
Modernisation as a matter of course
Waiting too long to implement modernisation can cost you in many ways. The frightening part is that most organisations don’t immediately recognise this. Being agile involves a lot more than just making rapid decisions with short turnaround times. You also need to have the background infrastructure capacity to cope with those decisions. Plus, you need to make certain you can handle the accompanying changes.
The key to achieving success with this is to keep modernising as the opportunities arise. Sinking a small amount of resources into this task will likely save you major restructuring in the future.
Adept is a proponent of modernisation to aid progress, offer better services and leverage advantages for our clients.