For many large organizations, IT infrastructure has been built over the course of many years, even decades, with siloed additions made to account for an acquisition or support a new IT or business need. Companies have now started to realize that their bulky, layered and complex IT infrastructure is not only inefficient (i.e., in terms of cost, space, and energy), but also does not give the business the support it needs to reach its full potential.
According to IBM, more than 70 percent of companies that participated in its survey of 750 technology executives say they understand how important IT infrastructure is to being competitive. However, only 22% say they have a well-defined IT infrastructure in place.* Additionally, IBM reports that less than 10% of survey respondents say their IT infrastructure can support the business demands in mobile technologies, social media, big data and cloud computing.*
An ideal IT infrastructure for companies is one that enables the business to generate value, while simultaneously reducing costs, improving asset optimization, remaining compliant with regulations and protecting the brand. To achieve these goals, as Ranjit Bawa of Deloitte explains, companies need to make "large-scale IT infrastructure investments" in order to achieve the desired operating model.
One aspect of transforming IT infrastructure is revisiting longstanding outsourcing contracts and the often numerous cloud environments in place. In many cases, cost and business process efficiencies can be gained by imposing new models on old outsourcing agreements, such as bringing part or all elements back in-house and/or adopting pay-per-service models. However, cloud is not necessarily the end-all and be-all to achieving cost savings.
According to David Boyle of EY, companies are taking more of a hybrid approach and becoming more strategic in their decisions to utilize cloud environments and their own data center capabilities to gain the cost, capacity and nimbleness attributes for which they strive.
Maximizing Company Benefits
However, looking at and solving IT infrastructure issues piecemeal—such as assessing the costs versus benefits of cloud environments—does not maximize the support and benefits a company can gain from its IT infrastructure ecosystem.
To develop an IT infrastructure that promotes cost savings, business agility and asset optimization and reduces risk, a company must make an investment to tackle everything at once in a strategic, cohesive and organized manner—i.e., pursue an IT infrastructure transformation. Working with consulting firms and taking a holistic view will identify all the IT infrastructure complexities across the company, such as data silos and limited reusability of infrastructure components, which in turn will allow consulting firms to make comprehensive IT infrastructure recommendations that will enable the business to pursue its goals more effectively.
Companies need an IT infrastructure that is smart and agile—one that can quickly adapt to changing business needs and has a level of predictability and automation that allows it to "know" when to adjust capacity, including when a server fails, and to generate alerts when there is a security threat. To achieve this companies must have the right mix of shared services, cloud computing, automation, co-hosting, traditional data centers, analytics and standardized processes and governance protocols. These changes result in fewer underutilized IT infrastructure-related assets, promote responsiveness to business changes, reduce set IT infrastructure costs, and enable real-time collaboration and self-provisioning.
However, achieving an agile and smart IT infrastructure is difficult, and to drive home Ranjit Bawa's point, companies need to "spend to save." IT infrastructure transformation consulting gives companies the in-depth assessments and analyses necessary to build an executive-level business case to move forward with this huge undertaking.
• IBM Study: IT Departments Build Shared Value, Shared Belief with Business Leaders, IBM, November 2014.
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