The lifecycle of IT and IT devices is becoming shorter with time. New competitors are using the latest digital processes and practices for disrupting industries. Customer expectations are also increasing. Everyone wants a seamless, hyperconnected, and advanced experience. IT departments are under a lot of pressure. Your IT infrastructure should support leading-edge technologies like cybersecurity, data analytics, integration, and automated processing.

Due to this, your organization’s legacy IT system will quickly become obsolete. The systems modernization will help you in ensuring that your organization is ready for the future. However, you don’t need to focus on modernizing your systems and tools. You also need to upgrade the way you do your IT. The software vendor is generally still the same. However, you can’t apply the past principles to current technology solutions. Software is offered as a platform now. You can buy SaaS services for using the software.

The most important factors are still going to be the same. The main aim of your organization is to gain a competitive edge. Modernization efforts should help you in creating value for your stakeholders, investors, and enterprise.

You should know the elements of your IT systems. This will help you in improving your IT systems. Start by creating a plan that you can execute. In this article, we are going to share some principles which will help you in making your IT future ready for modernization. These are the essential guidelines that will help you in achieving digital transformation.

Give top priority to your customers

You should ensure that your new IT infrastructure is delivering value to your customers. Every investment in IT should help you in providing better value to end customers. This can be due to better user experience, better product quality, and better operating efficiencies.

You should start by creating a business case for the IT modernization effort. It is important to show expected innovation and value in this plan. Make sure that you are including the most important points for your customers. You should know what your new IT systems will help you in achieving. Make sure that you are tracking metrics for checking the progress of your plan. These metrics will include things like recruiting, productivity, sales, user experience, and customer retention.

You should use cross-function teams for planning your modernization efforts. Experts from areas like R&D, operations, IT, strategy, and customer interaction can work in the same agile sandbox environment. They can work together and create a perfect modernization strategy for your business.

Data modernization

You should have a modern data estate if you want to succeed in the modern environment. A modern database should help your organization in deriving timely insights. This data is going to act as the base for your AI program.

According to a report from Gartner, more than 75% of databases solutions will be moved to the cloud this year. Also, the data will grow to 175 ZB by 2025. This is a 61% growth in 3 years.

Moving your data to the cloud will help you in unlocking new data insights. They will help you in propelling data-driven innovations. However, you also need to deal with risks like data complexity, high costs, risk of corrupting important data, and unknown cloud risks.

You should take a strategic approach to reduce these risks. Your approach should help you in dealing with the pitfalls of unplanned migration. It will also ensure that you can easily move your data to the new cloud environment.

Application Modernization

Businesses are constantly under pressure. You need to meet the ever-changing market needs. Also, you need to become more agile and provide more value to your customers. The supply side also needs to deal with technical debt issues, unsupportive platforms, and old technology. They need to minimize the risks, costs, and time of digital transformation.

Application modernization will help you in solving all these problems. They will help you in taking your legacy applications and modernizing them according to the modern IT world. This will ensure that you can fit them into an agile and scalable environment. You can replace, rebuild, rearchitect, rehost, or refactor your applications. The choice will ultimately depend on your organization’s needs.

Application modernization can provide huge business value to your organization. You don’t need to worry about handling your legacy applications. However, it is also difficult to move these complex legacy applications to the cloud. Organizations are generally resistant to new tools and technologies. This can create a roadblock for your business.

It is important to find the right technology partner for your business. A good MSP like Bleuwire can help you in solving this problem. They can help you in moving your applications and data to the cloud. Bleuwire will provide an effective roadmap for your business. They will help you in planning, preparing, and moving your data to the organization. Also, they will help you in optimizing your important applications.

Workplace modernization

Workplace modernization is also important for your business. They will help you in gaining a competitive edge. You should ensure that your workplace has access to a modern workplace.

Workplace modernization is not possible until you create a proper plan. You might need to move your content to cloud tools. Also, you need to upgrade tools like Sharepoint. You might need to create new applications. Thus, you should create a proper plan before you start this problem.

Enterprise documents are generally present in multiple storage devices and applications like Google Drive, Sharepoint, File Shares, and Box. You need to decide the documents that you want to move to the cloud platform. Also, you need to select the documents that you need to remove and archive.

SMBs generally don’t have metrics for their data and complexity. Thus, it will be difficult for them to execute their plan. You should start by creating an effective roadmap for your business. There are multiple platforms like OneDrive, Office 365, Google Drive, or Sharepoint where you can move your data. The choice will ultimately depend on your business needs.

Design for speed and flexibility

Organizations need to adapt according to the ever-changing environment. It is important to ensure that you are continuously improving your products and services. Your systems should have the flexibility and speed for keeping up with the demands.

The IT systems in the past were competing on functionality only. Companies were focusing on one or two activities only. Thus, they were perfecting their systems for those activities only.

Modern systems are more flexible. They can easily deal with multiple possibilities for configuration and connection. Try to look for a modern and modular platform that will help you in accessing multiple functions for your business.

You should go for an MVP or minimum viable product approach for checking the fitness of your IT systems. In this, you will only do a bare-bone installation. You will only cover the features that are very important for your system value. This MVP will be released to a small group in the starting. You can ask early adopters for their feedback and responses. If it is possible, then you can observe their actions from your own systems. This will help you in learning about the features that your customers and employees care about.

Machine learning and AI will help you in achieving speed and flexibility. Customers and employees are addicted to search engines and apps that can guess what they are going to search or choose. They want the systems to learn their habits. The only way to achieve this is by using the latest technologies like AI and machine learning. These technologies will help you in learning about your customer behaviour.

Engage with your employees

Organizations think that IT modernization is only about changing technology. However, you should also ensure that your employees embrace these changes. You must align your new IT systems and solutions with your company culture. First, you need to recognize the new habits that your employees will easily adapt.

If you are upgrading your IT architecture, then it will also require a culture shift. You should consider the roadblocks that you might face. For example, you should check if your employees understand how you are analyzing the data that you are storing. Your employees should have the skills to coordinate with new vendors and partners. This information will help you in determining the support and training that you need to provide to your employees.

You should engage the employees who are using new technology. They should play an active role in this entire process. For example, you can pick some people from every department. This team will help you in taking your IT transformation effort to the next level.

Be Agile

You should never go for the big bang approach when you are modernizing your IT. In the big bang approach, you need to wait months before you can see the results. If you want to modernize your IT infrastructure, then you should look for ways to check results quickly.

Start by dividing your IT modernization roadmap into multiple delivery increments. Release usable functions whenever it is ready and tested. It is better to have a rapid and incomplete system when compared to a slow and complete system. This will help you in quickly get feedback from your users. You can improve your products by using this feedback.

Try to remain user-centric even when you are embracing agility. Be attentive to your employee and customer responses. These responses will help you in improving your products and IT infrastructure. Roll out new features to your users and let them test the new features. Try to roll out new features to a small subset of users. This will help you in quickly update your product.

Invest in resources that will help your business

You should do an analysis of the diversity of resources you need for successful IT modernization. Project management is also important for your business. Make sure that you are highly selective when you are creating a team for your business. Try to pick people that have a strong desire to try new things.

You should also allocate some funds to your IT modernization priority. Make sure that you are clear about the areas where you don’t want to spend your money. This will ensure that your financial resources are dedicated to important things only.

Make sure that you are not working with a single vendor only. Try to work with multiple vendors. Your software developers can experiment with new open-source software. Look for IT systems and technologies that you can easily integrate with your business. These new technologies should work together with your already existing systems and technologies.

You should also create a plan for retiring your old system. Move your employees to new IT systems. You should also include funding for development and learning. Make sure that you are clear about your transition plan. This will ensure that your employees will be ready for the new changes. You should provide incentives to your employees. This will ensure that your employees will stay motivated for their work.

Conclusion

IT modernization is very important for every business. If you want to compete with modern businesses, then you should focus on upgrading your IT first. You need to do application migration, data migration, and also Office 365 migration. Anything can go wrong during migration. Due to this, you will lose a lot of revenue and productivity as your employees can’t do their work.

The best way to avoid downtime is by working with a good MSP. Experienced MSPs like Bleuwire can help you in digital transformation. They will upgrade your IT infrastructure and systems. Thus, you don’t need to worry about upgrading your IT systems alone. This will also remove some burden from your IT department. Bleuwire will also help you in moving your data and applications to the cloud. This will ensure that you don’t need to worry about hiring cloud experts. You can move all your data to the cloud without experiencing any downtime. If you need more information regarding cloud migration services, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™ services and solutions in how we can help your business.