Eyes On the Prize: Best Practices for IT Modernization
IT leaders at large and small companies and in all industries are modernizing their IT environments. Modernization projects can include network infrastructure, computing and storage hardware, applications, databases, websites, or a combination.
Why are so many businesses going to the trouble and expense to modernize? Every company has its reasons, but in general, the reasons fall into one or more of four broad categories:
- Cost control: Reducing operational costs in system updates, power and cooling, and disaster recovery.
- Talent: Attract and retain top talent with modern applications that result in process improvement, a more collaborative team environment, and skills enhancement.
- Productivity: Supporting changing business needs with flexible, better-performing solutions that give your internal end users modern tools.
- Competitive advantage: Making it easier for customers to do business with you, with better communication, enhanced visibility, and self-service capabilities.
The Downside: Modernization Is Hard
The bad news is that modernization can be complex. Dig into any failed modernization project, and you will likely find the usual suspects at fault for any IT project failure:
- Organizational inertia: Fear of change, satisfaction with the status quo, and a “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” mentality can all derail a modernization project.
- Low-risk tolerance: Some organizations are more risk-averse than others. The risks must be weighed against the expected benefits.
- High costs: Modernization costs must be measured against realistic expectations of future returns on that investment.
- Business disruption: Bad memories of past IT project failures and their negative impact on the business can influence opposition to a modernization project.
Ease the Transition by Following Best Practices
Despite the difficulties inherent in executing a modernization project, the impact can be minimized by following certain best practices.
Start From the Beginning
Before choosing a solution, defining the business problem that is being addressed is important. To that end, keep these factors in mind:
- Engage the end users early and often to learn their pain points and get their ideas for improvement.
- Analyze current business practices and optimize them to eliminate waste. Throw out business processes that no longer serve a useful purpose.
- Draw a hard border around what’s in scope. Define what “done” looks like and stick to it.
Design For the Present – With an Eye On the Future
It’s impossible to predict the future with 100% accuracy, but your company almost certainly has growth targets and goals for the next few years. Your solution should be scalable and flexible enough to accommodate future growth in employees, customers, product lines, and revenues.
Choose the Right Modernization Approach
Several tactical approaches to modernization are available, such as “lift and shift” (to move a legacy system to a new hardware environment), refactoring (rewriting legacy software using modern development frameworks and technologies), and re-platforming (upgrading back-end databases and other components), among others. The chosen one should give you the most significant benefit with the lowest risk.
How Solution Machine Can Help
Small- and medium-sized businesses need more resources and expertise to independently embark on an IT modernization project. An experienced, competent partner will save money in the long run and significantly improve the chances of success.
Solution Machine has the experience and expertise to help you with your modernization efforts. Our consultants take pains to understand your business problems and processes and can design a solution that will fit your needs now and years into the future.
If you are contemplating an IT modernization project but need help figuring out where to start, contact Solution Machine today to learn how we can help.