Just imagine for a second that transformation, this buzz word attached to IT, Digital, Workforce and Security, is the janitor. He comes in, often unseen, and changes the way the business looks from the inside. He makes the mess left behind into something usable. Like the janitor, transformation subtly takes the old and turns it into something new.
The thing is, transformation doesn’t need people. Unlike the office clean-up crew, successful transformation is best done without direct human control.
Think about it. If you wanted to really solve the challenges of scale and complexity wouldn’t it be wiser to put the human aside and instead rely on software to run your systems? Humans are notoriously bad at making decisions and even worse when it comes to making mistakes. In a study undertaken by Stanford Law School, they found that 90% of motor vehicle crashes are caused in part by human error. Only 3% are caused by mechanical failure. That is an average of 40 vehicles per 1000 people and it is predicted that by 2035, things will be worse with the alarming statistic of 310 vehicles per 1000 people. Compare these statistics with the self-driving car which has, after two million miles of driving, only had one accident.
In the battle of man versus machine, the machine wins. Again. And this is just driving a car. What of the scale and complexity that comes hand-in-hand with application ecosystems? IT has to transform the business to achieve greater efficiency, predictability and agility, but humans are not the ones who should be working the wheels. This role should fall to technology where software is designed to solely perform specific tasks to the utmost degree of accuracy.
Not only does losing the human touch assure of greater accuracy and capability, but it ensures that the digital transformation journey is done capably from the start.
In a recent survey undertaken by Dell, 71% of customers agreed that their firms would no longer be competitive in their markets if they didn’t embrace IT transformation. Not just Information Technology (IT) transformation, but intelligent transformation that encapsulates process, system, people and potential. The business needs to modernise the data centre to handle the demands of digital, automate service delivery to compete more effectively on the playing field, and overhaul IT operations so they are more adaptable and capable of the infamous pivot.
It is within the cloud that service delivery and IT operations should aim to sit as this allows for access to better resources, improved control over deliverables and the ability to expand or contract capability on demand. For the infrastructure that sits on the ground, serviced by the cloud, the organisation should look to modernisation. It’s great that there’s cloud, but it won’t do much if the infrastructure can’t cope – servers, storage, networks, virtualisation tools all need to undergo the modernisation knife. After all, as they say in the beauty industry, no pain, no gain.
Fortunately, thanks to the development of the converged / hyper-converged infrastructure, the amount of pain is minimal at best. The business can start on a smaller scale, only to adapt as demand and budgets grow, and they can feel the almost instant benefits of cost reduction and efficiency. They also don’t need to worry about people driving the car – these systems run themselves and are extremely simple to manage.
The result? The business invested in IT transformation is three times more likely to be ahead of schedule on new projects, 33% more likely to exceed revenue goals, and is two times more likely to have budget available for innovation. The business and IT alignment across operational levels is seamless, and infrastructure and applications are integrated and agile enough to shift on demand. IT transformation – remove the people, introduce the technology, feel the difference.
Until next time, thank you for your continued support of First Technology.
Warm Regards
Johan de Villiers Managing Director
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