People are at the heart of every organisation. They’re the culture, the ideas, the history and the future. The IT team is at the very centre, providing the fabric that knits it together. As digitisation takes hold and 24/7 IT becomes the norm, this fabric is stretched thin. Torn between keeping the day-to-day IT running and dreaming up the technology that will lift the business ahead of the rest, IT professionals can be held back by sheer overload. At this point, there is one question every business must answer: how do we free up the IT team to achieve amazing?
Cloud
New cloud services emerge almost daily, and keeping track takes intense focus. We find that our role as an IT partner must adapt to act as a filter for our clients, so they can identify relevant, suitably secure cloud services from the crowd.
The key here is a strong cloud management strategy. We have seen truly outstanding use of cloud to enable collaborative, mobile workplaces. Some organisations we work with take advantage of the off-site backup options available. For most, though, cloud is ideal used for specific, identified needs where bursting capability is essential.
On-Site Infrastructure
Cloud, though, is far from a perfect, blanket answer to every IT question. Visibility can be problematic, leading to cost blow-out. Aside from the associated monthly bill shock, security becomes an issue: you can’t secure what you can’t see.
There are many very compelling reasons to retain on-premise infrastructure, and progress in new generation products certainly can reduce management and administration burden. Even with these gains the requirement for ‘always on’ business is at odds with sparse skilled IT resources. Given the high value of the IT team’s time when it comes to creating new apps and services, or reducing operating costs, is it wise to focus a sizeable chunk of their energy into managing infrastructure?
Flexible Managed Services
For most organisations, a hybrid mix of on-premise and cloud is the current reality. Adding into the recipe for success, a new breed of managed services fill the gaps and act as an extended IT department. If some shred of IT department sanity is to be maintained, and users still given the round the clock service needed, this support acts as an essential prop.
While once, IT services came in rigidly packaged, on-size-fits-all solutions, today it is all about custom-design. Typically, our services team begin by working out the best balance between budget and needs, right down to covering holidays or offering helpdesk out of hours. Some customers opt out of infrastructure management altogether and focus entirely on business growth, others prefer a more fluid, when needed outcome.
Supporting your IT team to build a future can take many forms, and as new choices become available, it is worth undertaking a regular review. Those with the combination of in-depth knowledge of your business and understanding of new technologies will be key to a successful digital transition, and liberating them from the 24/7 IT overload allows them to achieve amazing. Why expect anything less?
Need to know more about cloud, infrastructure or services to support your future success? Contact the friendly Mangano IT team today.
