Why CIOs Need to Be Thinking About IT Transformation

For the past few years, large and mid-size businesses have been focusing on digitally transforming their organizations.

Yet, as CIOs work to transform their organizations into technology companies (whether they internally label themselves as one or not), adapting to modern technology is simply the first step. The next is to create and leverage IT transformation strategies in order to keep up with modern demands.

Today, we’re taking a close look at ITX through the eyes of a recent white paper by Forbes Insights, titled: Artificially Intelligent Data Centers: How the C-Suite Is Embracing Continuous Change to Drive Value.

Understanding IT Transformation

Technology is ever-evolving. That is the concept and the force behind the popular, and sometimes misused term, digital transformation.

As technology evolves, so, too, must the businesses and organizations that rely on it to implement business processes and make mission-critical decisions. As DX is enacted at most large and mid-sized organizations globally, the next step is IT transformation.

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Where DX has put a focus on leveraging new digital technology to enforce transformation in processes and systems, the white paper defines ITX as follows:

“The shift from traditional IT to IT-as-a-Service cloud models [delivers] agility and scalability for internal and external IT consumers. This may include modernizing the IT infrastructure, automating the delivery and consumption of IT services, and transforming IT operating models to free up resources for strategic initiatives, speed up product development and reduce costs.”

IT transformation capitalizes upon modernized infrastructures and uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and predictive analytics to support DX through automation and business intelligence capabilities.

How To Achieve ITX In Your Org

1. Modernize your data center

“Modern IT is a prerequisite, but how technologists have leveraged the technologies and how the organization has embraced them is more predictive of performance.” — David Cantu, COO of Redapt, Inc.

Many CIOs now understand that successful implementation of solutions based on AI and ML relies on modern data centers capable of storing, organizing, and indexing massive amounts of data in an accessible and scalable way.

To illustrate that point, imagine for a moment that you have millions of your prospect’s phone numbers.

A modernized data center should be able to handle this amount of data and organize it in a way that is discoverable in a matter of milliseconds. For example, you may want to find and segment phone numbers in a certain area code or identify numbers that have been contacted within the last sales cycle.

As we approach 2020, the value of data is rising every single day. And yet, many organizations are stuck with an outdated approach to storing and managing it.

Modernizing your IT infrastructure will take time, resources, and a company-wide commitment. However, doing so will save your organization money and time in the long run and it will also allow you to keep up with ever-evolving customer demands and market trends.

2. Automate non-value-added work

“The more we can automate, the more we can fully utilize the resources that are available to us.” — James Lowey, CIO of TGen, a nonprofit biomedical research institute

Flashback to 20 years ago when nearly all processes were manual. Everything from file storage — aisles of beige file cabinets — to managing customer relationships was done by hand.

Today, manual management and maintenance of processes like these and more inane IT operations are becoming more obsolete. Processes that used to take humans days — even weeks — to complete can now be solved in just a matter of minutes. Imagine the possibilities this opens up for your organization.

That’s precisely why leaders in DX are nearly four times more likely to automate their IT operations. Things like artificially intelligent data centers and dynamic, multi-cloud environments open up opportunities to unlock the essential analytics their data can provide to make smart, forward-thinking business decisions.

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In the whitepaper, an example of this automation is the story of Rio Grande Pacific Corp., an organization that owns and operates a number of railroads. This company installed new storage systems that unlocked advantages such as faster performance and management software to take care of what was previously manual work. Things like temperature management, processor utilization monitoring, and more are now fully automated, freeing up the IT staff to be more effective at their jobs.

Once you have automated your manual processes, the next step is to automate your decision-making. With ML and AI, you can automate the decision-making process and make them based on data rather than instinct alone.

In other words, AI doesn’t replace business leaders. It enhances them.

Consider investments. Years ago, information about companies — business and financial plans, P&L statements, etc. — were manually reviewed. This process took hours, if not days, of investors reading through stacks of documents. Today, AI solutions can crunch through this data in mere seconds and produce concrete insights. A leader can now make a decision based on their own expertise and firsthand knowledge as well as with these machine-assisted analytics.

3. Overcome cultural roadblocks

According to the white paper, 34% of C-suite executives overall say outdated infrastructures represent the top technical challenge to achieving IT transformation.

No amount of digital transformation, no matter how significant, will make a dent if your company culture and organizational structures remain as outdated as a floppy disk.

Yet, anyone who’s attempted to transform their company culture understands that it’s not an overnight process. It’s a roadblock that takes time, patience, and resources to overcome.

According to the white paper, here are the three steps it takes to affect cultural change:

1. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) must transform their team’s workflow — especially as IT automation becomes more prevalent
2. Senior managers must alter the way talent is rewarded for successful performance, as roles and job duties evolve
3. Organizations as a whole must facilitate an environment that cultivates forward-thinking talent

As technology and work culture evolve, companies must take action from an organizational level to keep up with demands. We work with a number of organizations to help them make this evaluation, and often apply our simple technology maturity framework to initiate effective progress towards change.

Effective change requires a clear understanding of what your organization wants to achieve and what steps it will take to get there. To learn more about how Redapt can help your company smartly invest in its data infrastructure, reach out and contact us today.

You can also download our eBook: Unlocking the Potential of Modern Datacenters: Five Good Reasons Companies Should Invest in Their Data Infrastructure.

Get your free eBook

Unlocking the Potential of Modern Datacenters