React and Adapt
Use integration and control to achieve technical transformation.
Going digital should be considered against what can be changed to deliver the most benefit to the business. Cloud adoption should not be seen as the essential panacea — and indeed some cloud services already under your control may be themselves classified as old and part of the established estate. The cloud should be seen as an enabler of tools and services when and where it is appropriate to use them. Businesses need to build a plan that will enable new services and models to exist and build in this new mode, while also updating and integrating with existing estates.
The key piece to any technical transformation of business is integration and control. Businesses must establish a bimodal model of IT, an all-encompassing base strategy of consolidation, renewal and integration of old and new. This focus is critical to allow businesses to consolidate, migrate and build for the future by integrating what they have, with what they want and what they do not yet know, on one globally integrated IT structure.
Go Digital or Die? How to Build a Bimodal Digital Future
Go Digital or Die? How to Build a Bimodal Digital Future
We are increasingly seeing that success in today's IT world comes from “going digital.” Just 10 years ago, we didn't have access to smartphone apps or social media, and even email was much more limited. Alongside a new generation of tech-savvy consumers and the proliferation of digital channels, every piece in the puzzle of communications has been impacted — and for the better.
Whether this involves changing businesses from the ground up and building fresh approaches to old problems, the use of DevOps, cloud or other technology, the stark reality is that most IT departments now have a range of applications and an established — although sometimes partially unknown — estate in place. The time has come to think differently about the IT organization and how to integrate processes properly to build a “bimodal” digital future — where both old and new can seamlessly operate.
Being told to go “all digital or die” is more than a daunting prospect and is often faced with a feeling of apathy. Going digital is not about moving to the cloud or any other specific technology — it's really about a sociological change of how technology sits within the business. When done right, IT changes from being a financial burden to a team that can affect, create and drive real business change via new digital technologies, while providing ideas that will have both top- and bottom-line effects.
In this slideshow, William Morrish, director of cloud services at Interoute, discusses the key elements to the DNA of today's digital sphere, which IT leaders need to know if they want to transform business processes.
