As we intend to replan our actions with more resilience, sustainability, and equity, modernizing the foundation is key to unleashing digital value across all industries. Being digitally enabled has become a key success factor for achieving strategic goals.
Standardizing infrastructure by modernization allows enterprises to leverage next-generation technologies, including 5G, blockchain, and the metaverse while driving down costs and enhancing productivity.
As David Allan Coe has rightly mentioned, “It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; it’s the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.” A digitally-ready infrastructure that is simple, secure, and automated is one of the key drivers of success for organizations. To cater to the exponential growth, fungible IT infrastructure is the foundation on which differentiated customer experiences can be built while also enhancing data security, with access being the key component.
Future-proofing IT Infrastructure
In recent years, many infrastructure players have explored opportunities to renew their efforts to digitize. We are seeing technologies such as hybrid cloud, IoT, and edge computing being adopted to boost productivity. The COVID-19 outbreak has provided an opportunity to implement more cutting-edge infrastructure and improve business continuity.
Next-generation IT assets are becoming more prevalent as digital adoption becomes more deeply embedded, from integrated asset management systems to new payment systems. However, the certainty is that most organizations are impromptu to fully leverage digital technologies. To prepare, the underlying infrastructure must be modernized immediately.
Consider, for example, a navigation app, which provides a plethora of options for enhancing a better understanding of the journey. Real-time data and similar adoption of options on a large scale (city traffic planners and operations managers) will allow enterprises to draw optimized grids and reduce carbon emissions.
An effective IT infrastructure transformation necessitates not only the adoption of cutting-edge technologies but also the creation of incredible synergies in the area of business process management. No solution introduced should ever reduce the efficiency or quality of a work process. The adopted infrastructure should be more agile, flexible, and scalable so that businesses can maximize their focus and bring in new opportunities.
Automating IT Infrastructure
The introduction of AI-enabled IT infrastructure will cater to a large volume of growth opportunities, making the traditional way of managing the infrastructure to be expensive. A well-managed IT infrastructure will be able to seamlessly integrate with the organization’s end-to-end operations, allowing enterprises to manage the resources more effectively. To begin, implementing enterprise-grade automation –scale/performance/accuracy will be a significant action taken by organizations across industries.
IT infrastructure automation encompasses a set of technologies and processes that work together to improve the reliability, performance, and security of an organization’s systems. Intelligent Automation (integration of advanced technologies), Immutable Infrastructure (building a system with fixed specifications – Infrastructure-as-code), Composable Infrastructure (visualize IT infrastructure elements and provision them accordingly), and Zero-touch (closed-loop) automation are a few key areas of focus for the near future.
Organizations can achieve transformative benefits by implementing either intelligent automation or immutable or composable infrastructure. However, if a company has legacy systems in its IT estate, it may begin with closed-loop automation, which is an automated process that does not require user input or feedback. Adopting zero-touch automation will allow enterprises to automate the entire process, from fault detection to ticket closure, in a closed loop without requiring human intervention.
Prerequisites for IT infrastructure modernization
With IT infrastructure modernization, enterprises can achieve efficient utilization of human capital. The time spent updating, managing, and supporting can be used to focus on more strategic tasks, improving operational efficiency and business productivity. Furthermore, it allows enterprises to provide a seamless experience to customers and increase their trust. Additionally, IT infrastructure modernization enables new ways of doing things, i.e., from process creation to report generation, enterprises can define new optimized ways of doing things without requiring significant resources.
Unless IT leaders understand how modernization will have cascading effects on IT operations, the impact on strategy, planning, and operations cannot be significant. Some of the common benefits that organizations will get through IT infrastructure transformation include the following:
Enhanced service levels: By modernizing IT infrastructure, enterprises will be able to streamline more activities and manage resources efficiently, which will improve their delivery level. Improved technology adoption will improve both internal and external service level performance.
Enables boundaryless IT: Technologies such as cloud and Software Defined Infrastructure will break down silos and provide a better view of the organization’s overall strategic vision and enable innovation.
Improves security: The standardization and automation that Digital IT infrastructure brings to the table help maintain consistency and enhance security. Further, it enables enterprises to detect and act quickly on potential security issues, thereby reducing unplanned outages in the environment.
Enhances productivity: With the growing popularity of technology, businesses are expected to provide optimized user experiences without compromising agility or quality. IT transformation will help enterprises stay ahead in the game and ensure business continuity in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
In today’s day and age, customers want to know that their IT service will be seamless and provide innovative solutions to help them grow their businesses. They also want forward-thinking and impactful technological upgrades from their service providers. In today’s business ecosystem, pursuing and implementing digital IT infrastructure transformation will ensure the resilience of existing business models while laying the groundwork for future disruption. Over the next decade, new computing paradigms and network advancements will enable organizations to create innovative solutions while introducing new value propositions to the economy.
(The writer Anuj Bhalla is digital and cloud transformation leader, president, APJI–Asia Pacific, Japan, India–Enterprise, Tech Mahindra)
(Disclaimer: views expressed are the writer’s own)