Digital transformation - outcome or nowtcome
Many organisations are finding it difficult to attract (and keep) the skills and talent they need to exploit the rapidly growing set of tools at their disposal from cloud adoption
A decade ago, most businesses were not familiar with technologies like big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) as they required a heavy upfront investment to implement and run not to mention a hefty outlay to maintain. Nowadays, projects and ideas can be thought of, designed, provisioned, and torn down within a day at very little cost. With the sheer amount of case studies and performance statistics available it is clear to business leaders how these technologies can help improve their products and services at lightning pace.
The downside however quickly becomes evident when it comes to acquiring the skillsets needed to operate these innovative technologies which are uncommon in most IT departments. Having the capability to automate your infrastructure, modernise applications and operate efficiently requires constantly evolving skills that thrive on the bleeding edge of innovation.
The demand for businesses to be data driven, agile and resilient in a tougher climate makes it more important than ever to execute on business strategies that deliver a competitive advantage. The cloud model makes all these previously cost prohibitive technologies available and within reach due to the "pay for what you use" pricing structure.
At Claranet we often help organisations that have had to delay transformation projects due to a lack of inhouse skills. According to Gartner, "insufficient cloud IaaS skills will delay half of enterprise IT organizations' migration to the cloud by two years or more".
Very rarely can a non-IT organisation have a bench of talented people that can cover the spectrum of needs from application development to infrastructure and network security. Organisations should consider working with specialist partners to deliver outcomes affording them the time and resources to focus on the needs of the business.
This is not to say businesses should outsource their entire IT function to MSP’s because that is far from effective. Businesses will always need a seasoned inhouse team that have a deep understanding of the organisation’s infrastructure, assets, and application interdependencies to manage the complex IT estate across public, private and on premises environments. The value of bringing in specialist partners is their subject matter expertise, extensive experience of digital transformations and burst resource capabilities "But even as CIOs increase their use of cloud services and look to move workloads to hyperscale providers, it is clear they will be running hybrid cloud and multi cloud operations, in public cloud, co-located and on premises, for years to come. And many will look to their long-established technology partners for help.".
By partnering with a Managed Service Provider like Claranet, customers benefit from the consultative advice of experts with hundreds of cloud projects under their belts. From end-to-end transformations to migrations at scale we can help you define the strategy, assess your readiness, and design a sustainable cloud environment that is future proof and secure.
One example is Arup Group, a British multinational professional services firm headquartered in London. Claranet consolidated most of Arup's digital estate which consisted of eight large global Data Centres into a cloud-driven infrastructure and delivered a highly cost effective and streamlined implementation. Claranet also continues to provide a wide range of managed services to support Arup's digital estate.
We have a close relationship with the Claranet team and view them as an extension of our own team. This helped ensure the entire migration process was very smooth, and we encountered minimal problems. Cost savings are a by-product of what we are achieving. We are able to overcome performance issues globally, offer continuity, and deliver a high-quality service.
Dai David, Chief Technology Officer, Digital Technology at Arup.
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