Today’s companies are often plagued by IT problems that can make it hard to execute a coherent strategy.
With the digital economy taking over much of the business world, poorly implemented IT infrastructure planning can sabotage your growth.
Insufficient storage resources, low-performing BI systems, and the lack of a forward-facing plan can make it impossible to manage your needs. Even worse, a legion of hackers is ready to take advantage of any security flaws in your systems to steal your data.
Managing these issues requires a flexible balance of your resources, which can be thin and delicate to maintain without real help. In some instances, minor issues like system updates may end up throwing your infrastructure for a dangerous loop.
All of these problems are caused by changes that may be difficult to predict. Just compare your current needs to those you had five years ago.
Was it easy to anticipate the scale of changes?
With the rapid pace of technology advent, such issues are inevitable. Any change in customer behavior or technology trends alters your strategy.
However, there are ways to future-proof your IT and ensure it stays relevant for years. We will take a look at a few of these methods, including the significant benefits of cloud use and its adoption now and in the future.
Future Proofing With IT Cloud Technology
The global cloud adoption has gone through multiple stages since its initial breakthrough in business.
Today, a substantial portion of global businesses have already migrated their applications to the cloud. According to Gartner, they are continuing to adopt application services and are increasingly experimenting with Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions.
This year only, the IaaS market is expected to grow by 36.8 percent and reach $34.6 billion. This figure illustrates the demand for advanced IT solutions that are making it possible for businesses to stay abreast of market changes.
As the business world changes and the digital economy becomes more pervasive, companies increasingly move their applications, storage, and databases into the cloud. Enabling elastic scaling for future upgrades, the cloud ensures they will be able to meet their IT demands in future, while significantly cutting their IT budgets.
So just how much money are businesses retaining by adopting a cloud-based approach to their IT?
Another survey report found that businesses were saving about 14 percent of their budgets every year by using this cloud-based approach. For example, a company that had a budget of $1,000,000 would save $140,000 every year by adopting this approach.
There are many more statistics that showcase the significant benefits that the cloud use offers a strategic approach to your IT. Before moving on to discuss more trends that you can use for future-proofing your information technology, it is worth understanding a few ways that you can transition to cloud-based storage for your company.
Companies that are planning to increase their cloud spent over the next couple of years need to keep a few vital tips in mind. While it is true that the cloud gives you the kind of flexibility and adaptability that your company needs, you still need to work out a proper workload migration plan.
More importantly, you need to understand current market trends to be able to plan for future. Below are some concepts that should guide your transition and help you build an infrastructure that is adaptable to multiple business situations.
1. Reevaluate Your Operational Spending
Your IT staff is challenged daily by your operational spending. For example, they may work day and night to keep your server up and running smoothly. Save them time by moving operational issues to the cloud.
By moving many of your high-use and memory-hogging applications to the cloud, you streamline your business operation and make it easier to transition. Before you start, you may want to reevaluate your current needs.
Once you understand what workloads you should migrate to maximize your resources, you can proceed with your plan.
Most businesses have a few servers that support their digital operations. Start moving your low-volume small business servers to the cloud and then do the same for your high-volume ones. It is essential to start with smaller ones first because they are typically resource-hogs that slow down your efficiency. Then, moving on to the larger ones helps create a nearly cloud-based system.
2.Consider Corporate Information Technology Trends
Too many people start moving to the cloud without understanding the various decision-making trends that are rocking the IT world. These concepts have expanded since you started your business and are crucial to understanding. By mastering them in your business, you create a more coherent and engaging IT system that is forward thinking.
There are several trends currently affecting the IT decision-making process. One of them being the continually growing need for data center space.
We have already hit on this point a bit in our cloud section, but a growing number of businesses are eliminating their physical data storage solutions. While in-house data centers will never become obsolete, they will hardly remain the sole solution to your IT needs.
For companies looking to retain control of their data, the hybrid cloud emerges as the right option. In fact, it is one of the fastest-growing models in today’s mid-market and enterprise segments. Last year, IDC FutureScape report estimated that this year we would see 80% of enterprise IT organizations committing to hybrid cloud architectures.
Depending on the pace of your company’s growth, you may want to plan toward hybridization of your infrastructure today. If you already have some form of multi-cloud strategy, the chances are that it will work for your needs in the next several years.
3. Build a Future-Proof Information Technology Plan
Effective technology planning must include collaboration between IT and business departments. With a number of options now available, companies need to develop a strategy that uses the most efficient ones.
However, those that work for you today may not be the best options tomorrow. That is why your plan needs to be flexible enough to provide space for various new solutions to be implemented.
When making IT decisions, ask yourself what needs will affect your market in the future. For example, your business may be affected by the implementation of certain types of security measures. If your cloud is under HIPAA regulations, you need to ensure your IT business partners are planning to renew their HIPAA licenses.
Your company may also be impacted by a change in material acquisition. Will your infrastructure allow for easy data and application migrations in such circumstances?
Anticipating these trends ensures your information technology remains future-proof. This is why you need to sit with multiple departments in your company, discuss all these options, and find the right answer.
Now that you understand future-proofing methods, you need to take actionable steps towards executing a whole strategy. These concepts are simple to understand but crucial to your success.
4. Create Continuing Education Programs
Making a program for educating your workers and IT specialists ensures that your IT remains simple to understand and free from confusion. More importantly, it allows your users to adapt to future needs and creates a knowledgeable workplace.
5. Outsource Skilled IT Staff
While it is always possible to hire skilled staff to manage your IT, outsourcing is often an excellent idea. That is because it allows you to bring in outside experts that are regularly trained in new concepts.
It also helps you avoid going “all in” on an employee who may not be ready for full project management of business information strategy.
6. Always Outline Your Business Expansion Goals
Every company has different goals for their business. Defining yours helps you to identify what kinds of new IT technology you need. For example, maybe you want to expand your digital marketplace globally, or be able to continuously introduce new products and services.
Focusing on this topic requires executing an actionable and engaging plan that is consistent with other types of online markets you want to serve.
You may want to retain the focus on the same market but expand globally. If this is the case, you need to ensure global infrastructure scaling options are available to you.
7. Research IT Platform Possibilities
There are many types of information technology platforms that you can use to future-proof your IT needs. For example, you can choose private or public clouds for your system.
Private clouds may be too costly for smaller businesses but provide more security than public clouds. Careful platform research ensures you will not have to change yours too soon.
Final Thoughts on corporate IT strategy Looking Forward
Creating a future-proof IT plan of action requires a little work, careful planning, and an understanding of the latest trends impacting the market. The ideas outlined above may seem basic on the surface, but they provide a surprisingly rich variety of possibilities.
Make sure to pick and choose the concepts that work the best for your future-proofing needs. For example, migrating to the cloud is typically a good step for just about anybody. Some businesses may need more time to dig into the types of workloads that would be best to move to the cloud. Remember that you do not need to do everything at once to succeed.
Take your time and make sure each concept is perfected before moving on to another. The more you spend on planning your strategy, the greater the chances of succeeding in the IT world.
If you are still not sure how to start, our cloud experts would be happy to help! Give us a call or contact us via the form below, and let’s discuss your needs!