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5 Conversations IT Needs to Have with C-Level Peers

  • 5 Conversations IT Needs to Have with C-Level Peers-

    Rethink the Company's Data Center Strategy 

    An effective way to get alignment on your data center strategy is to explain how hybrid IT approaches will allow you to bridge your prior investments (i.e., on-site infrastructure and co-location assets, sunk-licenses and hardware cost, etc.) with the goal of increasing agility and time to market through new solutions. Business leaders need to understand the differences between public cloud, private cloud and managed services, and how a hybrid strategy will provide an immediate path forward for your company. By having business leaders in the conversation, you can make smart choices on which services should be used today. After workloads that are critical to achieving agility and speed are migrated to the cloud, you can look at investing in your remaining workloads and managing your internal data center a different way. Leveraging managed services or co-location is an important part of any hybrid IT environment. And using a mix of services to create hybrid environments allows the IT organization to focus less energy on operations and more on what matters most: creating winning solutions for your business partners and customers. 

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5 Conversations IT Needs to Have with C-Level Peers

  • 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
  • 5 Conversations IT Needs to Have with C-Level Peers-4

    Rethink the Company's Data Center Strategy 

    An effective way to get alignment on your data center strategy is to explain how hybrid IT approaches will allow you to bridge your prior investments (i.e., on-site infrastructure and co-location assets, sunk-licenses and hardware cost, etc.) with the goal of increasing agility and time to market through new solutions. Business leaders need to understand the differences between public cloud, private cloud and managed services, and how a hybrid strategy will provide an immediate path forward for your company. By having business leaders in the conversation, you can make smart choices on which services should be used today. After workloads that are critical to achieving agility and speed are migrated to the cloud, you can look at investing in your remaining workloads and managing your internal data center a different way. Leveraging managed services or co-location is an important part of any hybrid IT environment. And using a mix of services to create hybrid environments allows the IT organization to focus less energy on operations and more on what matters most: creating winning solutions for your business partners and customers. 

Today's CIOs strive to make technology a strategic asset for the business and an engine of profitability. However, for the relationships between CIOs and their C-level peers to be truly successful, there should be a constant stream of open communication, with strong decisions being made, followed by rapid execution.

With this in mind, Bill Bradley, CIO of CenturyLink, recommends that IT leaders have five essential conversations with their C-level peers to achieve mutually beneficial alignment on transformational IT strategies. These talks revolve around explaining the increased value IT can deliver: 1) Aligning on agility as the goal; 2) Rationalizing the application portfolio; 3) Rethinking the company's data center strategy; 4) Investing in mobility; and 5) Building strategic services.

Making the IT/business relationship work takes time and focus, but an investment in having the right conversations will pay great dividends to both business and IT management. Transforming your business to be agile has challenges as well as opportunities. Having these five conversations will help you get on the right path to making progress that benefits both sides.