Digital transformation is not a business destination, it’s a business journey – and a hybrid IT strategy is an excellent vehicle for not only transporting your organization along the way, but also accelerating the trip.
We really enjoy the road analogies for helping you plot, pack, and progress along your business’ digital transformation journey. That’s because like any major excursion, digital transformation requires you – a member of your organization’s driving team – to have sharp vision, thorough preparation, and a roadworthy vehicle with the proper features and equipment for the long haul.
For our part, Involta continues to invest in growing our partnerships with hyperscale cloud providers – such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure – so our customers can connect to their data, adapt their data, and apply their data as leverage for achieving their business objectives. Think of data as fuel for your transformation vehicle and consider Involta your team of mechanics. We keep the engine purring and recommend the right octane to put into the tank, but we also help with mapping routes and prepping your crew for the expedition. Because while the technology is an important part of your transformation journey, trip planning before you hit the road (or developing an overall transformation strategy) is a critical aspect of traveling safely and successfully.
Let’s look at one of the common risks along any highway to anywhere – potholes. Here are three types of potholes our customers have encountered during their digital transformation treks, and how they dodged them:
Type 1: Narrow and deep ones
Hit a narrow, deep pothole at high speed and you can pop a tire, dent a wheel hub, or even break an axle. None of those consequences will end your trip. But they surely will delay it. Each will cost you, too. Treating the cloud as though it’s a traditional data center or network can be like that. Approaching cloud management with the same standards and controls as on premises architecture is like jumping behind the wheel of your hybrid IT strategy and zipping down the transformation highway so fast that you can’t see potholes until it’s too late. No time to veer away from deep costs such as third-party software licensing. If your business operates in multiple locations, software investments could be much greater than necessary when speeding blindly. If you operate in 50 locations? Well, it could be like busting an axle. So, slow down to leverage native properties and infrastructure. You’ll have time to swerve.
Type 2: Wide and shallow ones
Wide, shallow potholes won’t interrupt your trip necessarily. But they’ll certainly make your ride a lot less comfortable and satisfying – and so will managing applications in the cloud as though they reside on premises. Especially if you’re applying a “lift and shift” technique, which essentially means you want to deploy applications to the cloud as rapidly as possible. Our advice here is to make a pit stop and consider upgrading your tires – or in this scenario, your software. Your aim is optimizing operational performance so that striking wide, shallow potholes isn’t as jarring – even at higher speeds. In coding terms that means refactoring your applications to become “cloud native.” There’s an industry misconception that you can refactor only applications you’ve written yourself. Not so, most software vendors allow cloud-native modifications.
Type 3: Long and rough stretches of road
Every driver knows certain routes are smoother than others. Some surfaces are better maintained, others are a hodgepodge of patches. Some carry heavy traffic, others are less traveled. All are options for advancing your journey and which ones you choose depends on multiple factors. Hybrid cloud governance is just like that. Before you embark, multiple parties should be consulted during trip planning. For example, financial leaders should have some say in routing your journey!
At Involta, we call our transformation trip planning process an Innovation Framework, you can learn more about it by watching this video. Or, if you’d like to talk about the obstacles you’re facing on your digital transformation journey, schedule a no-obligation meeting with one of our digital transformation experts.
