Digital transformation is not a trend, it’s a business priority that can fundamentally shift an organisation’s growth and potential, by Robynne Todd, Business Manager – Cloud Enablement at Decision Inc.
There is little doubt that the past 18 months have fundamentally changed the digital picture. From a fuzzy, out of focus concept that few organisations could really understand to the ubiquity and scalability of cloud shoved into sharp, immensely valuable relief. Companies that had already set foot on the digital transformation highway were ahead of the curve, able to put their people online and in remote working environments at speed, those that had adopted the wait and watch approach were caught on the back foot.
The problem was that many companies had been sweating their assets and using legacy systems. They weren’t interested in moving from the CAPEX to the OPEX model and reinvesting their time and infrastructure into something new. Now, as the pandemic continues to leave ripples in the digital pond, transformation is a priority to ensure that companies are capable of ongoing productivity, and flexible enough to handle future uncertainty.
As companies shift towards cloud and digital, many are adopting hybrid cloud or multi-cloud solutions. Their value dependent on the type of organisation and the strategy that defines it. Both offer the business the invaluable ability to scale up, add resources, and evolve infrastructure within tight budgets and timeframes, and both allow for IT and innovation to thrive. Increasingly, as companies adopt these fresh-faced cloud models, they are realising the value of this speed and agility. They can spin up environments and instances without having to invest into additional hardware infrastructure, and they don’t have to worry about hardware costs or maintenance or asset replacement.
Organisations can use these cloud models to put themselves ahead of an extremely competitive market, using their agility and scale to resolve ongoing pain points and to shift and pivot approaches on demand. These solutions allow for companies to shift their focus from internal problem resolution to strategic innovation, allowing for them to explore new markets and opportunities while regaining a tighter hold on expenditure. They also take away the sweat – the ongoing juggle between end-of-life technology and the need to be ahead of the pack. To get going on the journey of realising the benefits of hybrid and multi-cloud environments, Decision Inc. recommends that companies should assess their environments for risk elements such as end of life products, licensing risks, overlapping technologies, and speed and performance, and then prioritise their investment based on the outcomes of this assessment. From there it’s about right-sizing the requirement before shifting to cloud in order to avoid unnecessary spend. It’s all about optimisation first in order to put the business on the right foot going forward.
