Go Digital or die? - Nope, react & adapt

We're all being told that in todays world of ICT its all about 'going Digital', changing businesses from the ground up and building fresh approaches to old problems using agile computing, DevOps, cloud and other technologies; but the stark reality is that most IT departments have a slew of applications and an established (sometimes partially unknown..) estate - being told to go all Digital 'or die' is more than a daunting prospect, its often one which is faced with a feeling of apathy due to this legacy.

Going Digital in the business sense is not about technical changes, it’s all about how you as an ICT department effect, create and drive change in your business that will have both top and bottom line effects.

However legacy and appetite to change shouldn’t be thought of in terms of old (existing) and new (cloud), it should be considered against what can be changed to deliver the most benefit to the business. Cloud adoption should not be seen as the essential panacea and indeed some Cloud services already under your control may be themselves classed as old and part of the established estate; Cloud should be seen as an enabler of tools and services when its appropriate to use them.

Gartner classify this old and new model of IT as Mode 1 (old/ITIL) and Mode 2 (new/Digital) and the reality is that businesses do need to change to retain their relevance; you need to work to build new ways of delivering services that will enhance and change your business -  if you aren’t heading in this direction then its certain your competitor is and will therefore soon be able to take your market share, a worrying thought.

Think of Uber, any taxi company in the world could have created their model; they had the knowledge more than anyone else, however they also had the most to risk to get there (Imagine the reaction to the head of your local taxi firm saying “I’ve had a thought, how about we ditch all of the cars and turn this into an app”!).  Most business won’t be able to start again entirely from the ground (perhaps a little more risk than most shareholders would be willing to bear), so you've got to build a plan that will enable new services and models to exist and build in this new mode, whilst also updating and integrating with your existing estates.

The key piece to any technical transformation of business is integration and control - you need to establish a bimodal model of IT - an all encompassing base strategy of consolidation, renewal and integration of old & new.

I’m going to the Gartner Catalyst conference in San Diego this week with the Interoute Virtual Data Centre (VDC) team to explain how our platform is more than just another cloud platform, VDC is an enabler of change - allowing businesses to consolidate, migrate and build for the future; all by integrating what they’ve got, with what they want, and what they don’t yet know - on one huge globally integrated platform.

If you’re there do come along to our stand to see how we can help you build the platform to underpin your own digital transformation.

I’ll also be discussing the above topics at 3.25 on Monday in the auditorium in my session ‘How to build your bimodal digital future, without having to start again’ - https://www.gartner.com/events/na/catalyst#!speakerDetails-11030328, it'd be great to see you there.

You can now view the presentation I gave on this at the Gartner Catalyst conference in San Diego by following the link below to the Gartner Events On Demand portal: https://www.gartnereventsondemand.com/session/CATUS6/SPS11