In their digital transformation journey, many organizations have now realized that just embracing new technology systems is not going to help them stay afloat in today’s troubled waters. In addition to driving efforts towards new technology adoption, there is also this widespread need to optimize existing IT systems, strategies, and costs, to pave the way for a stronger, leaner, and more resilient business ecosystem. But the presence of several weak spots restricts organizations from successfully optimizing their IT infrastructure. Read on as we uncover the top four weak spots in an IT optimization strategy.
Top IT Optimization Strategy Weak Spots
The race towards new technology adoption is at an all-time high, escalated by the far-reaching implications of the pandemic. According to an article by the World Economic Forum, 97% of global companies have accelerated adoption of technology to get through the pandemic, and beyond. While many organizations are constantly investing in new tools and systems to improve business performance, they are failing to see a tangible return on their investments because of the inability to efficiently optimize their IT strategies. If you find yourself struggling to drive the best results from your IT systems, it might be because of the following four reasons:
1. You’re not aligning IT with your business priorities: Embracing new technology systems because they are popular or because your competitors are reaping benefits from them is not going to take you far. Every organization is unique, with distinct processes, people, and goals. When you adopt new technology or modernize your existing systems, you need to make sure the IT decisions you take align with your business priorities. If you want to maximize the impact of your IT investment and efforts, you need to think about what decisions you should take in order to have a positive impact on your company’s results and fuel top-line growth. Whether you are implementing new features or customizing your tools to meet unique business needs, you need to do it keeping your larger business goals in mind to stabilize performance, enhance value, and reduce costs and risks.
2. You don’t have complete visibility: As the enterprise IT environment gets increasingly hybrid, organizations often find themselves struggling to get complete visibility into distinct systems – which makes it difficult to optimize IT strategies. Being limited by silos also causes data gathering and analysis to take a backseat. Unless you have sufficient visibility into all the different components involved in IT service delivery, there is no way you can realize cost or performance benefits from your IT tools and systems. To gain visibility into your hybrid IT ecosystem spanning multiple platforms and service providers, it is crucial to invest in centralized monitoring tools that provide real-time insight into IT operations – from what systems are currently present, to user issues and challenges, IT risks, performance bottlenecks, and more.
3. You don’t have defined cost structures: Another weak spot in your current IT optimization strategy might be your inability to define the right cost structures. Optimization strategies without continuous assessment of associated financial impact or risk might end up becoming a completely technical exercise – causing organizations to lose sight of the overarching goal of improving performance while reducing cost. Undefined costs will also restrict you from quickly evaluating different technology alternatives that can have a better impact on your bottom line. To make sure your IT optimization strategies drive the highest value, it is important to clearly define cost structures for every technology investment you plan to make, so you can stick to your budgets while also making the right decisions across resource sharing, software licensing, and facility management.
4. You’re not properly allocating costs: Many organizations also miss the mark at properly allocating costs – which is essential for successful IT optimization. Since IT now acts as the foundation of the operations of every team and department, the inability to allocate costs based on the usage of IT resources by different business units within the enterprise can lead to a risk of exploitation of resources by a particular function – and not by the enterprise as a whole. Properly allocating costs for each department or business unit, in relation to their consumption, is a great way to optimize costs while also increasing awareness and visibility.
In today’s digital era, enabling transparency into IT performance, costs, and risks has become extremely critical to drive the right business decisions. Yet, due to several weak spots in existing IT optimization strategies, organizations find it difficult to make the most of their IT systems. Aligning IT with business priorities, ensuring end-to-end visibility into systems and applications, properly defining cost structures, and allocating costs based on usage are all critical to strengthen the role IT plays in driving strategic outcomes and enabling long-term efficiencies.
