Best Places to Start in IT Transformation – What CIOs Are Telling Us

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Part 1 in our global analysis of IT transformation

To create the IT organization that will support a modern, digital business, IT organizations are examining their infrastructure, operating model, and applications. EMC announced the results of a global analysis that we did of companies who are striving to create just that type of IT organization.  The analysis comes from over 660 organizations who specifically engaged us to help them assess their gaps, benchmark them against their competition, and prioritize actions they can take to close those gaps.  It is not a random sample of research subjects, but an analysis of companies who are actually in the midst of an IT transformation. CIOs and their direct reports are the attendees of these workshops.

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Let’s take a look at that some of this data in 2 areas – infrastructure and operating model.

Infrastructure – CIOs want a hybrid cloud for automation and self-service to reduce operating costs.

Organizations who are making the most progress toward their digital business objectives are also the most enthusiastic hybrid cloud adopters.  Hence, it’s no surprise that defining a hybrid cloud platform is a top area where companies want to improve.  Over 90% of companies who participated in our workshops were in the evaluation or proof of concept stage in having a well-engineered hybrid cloud architecture.  Yet, 91% of IT organizations have no organized, consistent means of evaluating workloads for hybrid cloud.  A mere 3% have evaluated their application portfolio with the business, evaluating suitability for hybrid cloud delivery with respect to business processes and sensitivity of data.  Without a consistent process, evaluations are done ad hoc for just a few apps, are time consuming, and are difficult to repeat.  This can impede the standardization and adoption of hybrid cloud across the enterprise.

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Operating Model – CIOs want to run IT like a customer-focused business.

The area where organizations want to improve most is in their operating model and service strategy.  95% are striving to have an IT organization that has no silos and works together to deliver business-focused services at the lowest cost.

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They want to empower users with self-service and portals that will allow them to make value-based consumption decisions.  This means packaging IT services for easy consumption by the business, providing financial transparency through unit-based pricing and billing, and developing processes, roles, and skills to successfully manage the supply and demand side of the portfolio.

In my next blog, I’ll share some really interesting data points about where many organizations are in individual areas like an IT service catalog, self-service portal, infrastructure automation, and financial transparency, and what gaps they are striving to close the fastest.  Throughout the blog series, I’ll be sharing results on where IT organizations are in some very specific areas such as developing cloud-native applications and application development lifecycles.  I’ll also discuss how CIOs are closing gaps in these areas.

Bookmark this series, as it’s going to be a fascinating dive into the minds of IT executives across the globe.  Check out the infographic.

Continue Reading the Series:

IT Service Strategy: Catalogs and Portals
State of IT Transformation – CIOs Want More Automation
IT Execs Plan to Reduce Software Development Release Cycle Times by 75-90%
State of IT Transformation – Solving the Operating Model Challenge
How Do You Determine if Your Legacy App is Suitable for a Public Cloud?
Be a Healthcare IT Hero….Not a Superhero……
Are You An IT Service Fast Food Junkie?

About the Author: Denise Partlow

Denise is a Director of Product Marketing for Dell Technologies Consulting Services. She currently leads a team of professionals responsible for formulating and executing marketing strategy for Dell Technologies consulting services portfolio.
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