Telecom & Technology Consulting
Since the early part of the 21st century, the cloud has transformed how corporations use technology to achieve their business goals. While this distributed and ever-evolving model fosters more growth opportunities, it also increases IT complexity and the burden on management. And that can hinder innovation.
Leaders must learn how to reap the rewards of the cloud while simultaneously simplifying how IT works.
But simplifying can be challenging. By its very nature, the cloud increases the amount of your environments, vendors, APIs, and integration strategies. You need more sophisticated skills, more robust governance, and more people who can play cross-functional roles.
You also have issues around cybersecurity: increased intricacy, more platforms to watch over, more monitoring tools to manage, as well as regulatory requirements that must be maintained by experts in that field.
Then there’s shadow IT to contend with. The cloud makes it easy for individual business units to generate cloud services without involving IT. That’s convenient for the business units, but a potential disaster for IT – there are no qualified personnel to oversee security risks and governance issues.
Simplifying IT begins with increased IT staff training and improved project management. This is especially critical regarding cybersecurity, analytics, and business intelligence. Companies must invest in structured upskilling and reskilling programs, which prepares IT staff to efficiently manage new technologies.
To reduce complexity even further, enterprises must shift how they manage corporate acquisitions. That’s because each new acquired company has a specific IT system. As the number of disparate systems grow, inefficiency and costs skyrocket. Avoid this pitfall by dividing all of your systems into two categories – mission-critical, revenue-generating ones and non-misson-critical ones. Separating the two provides control, which in turn allows for a smart plan to simplify everything.
This plan may include creating an IT inventory and the creation of a playbook with timelines for training. Divide core systems (where operations and security depend on each other) from non-strategic systems (these only fold into the overall system if there’s a clear reason based on the cost-benefit analysis).
Whatever the issue, fundamental to reducing complexity is to standardize, cut overlaps, consolidate tools, decrease the level of fragmentation, and implement automation to eliminate repetitive tasks. Tasks become streamlined, efficiency grows, and IT workers gain more job satisfaction.
Efficiency improves even more when you focus on cloud governance and hybrid management. Specifically, consider employing tools that centralize control and visibility across multicloud environments. Also, implement a modular architecture, and assess value using KPIs and metrics around resilience and value creation.
As we can see, it’s important to change how people work, but it’s equally important to shift who they collaborate with. Complexity diminishes when IT becomes a strategic partner with the business unit. This translates to creating a culture of collaboration between different areas and adopting agile and DevOps methodologies.
Complex IT environments also become simplified when you streamline the process. However, this notion only becomes reality when both IT staff and management truly understand the rationale for changing processes. The mindset must go from IT simply being a tactical department to being a strategic department. It’s a perspective that needs to be shared by board members and leaders across the organization.
Part of this perspective involves the understanding that the acquisition of new technology, in itself, will not reduce complexity. The foundation for simplicity is built on an effective organizational structure and collaborative mindset.
CIOs must lead the charge to reduce complexity, including the facilitation and adoption of new methodologies and processes. They also need the objectivity to understand when an external consultant is necessary for specific expertise. They might have to ask for more budget; reducing IT complexity can be expensive. But in the long run, a simplified IT environment will be well worth the investment.
