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We’ve never had it so good in terms of our new tech capabilities. But it’s a double edge sword when we consider that our competitors also have access to the same technology that we do. In order to stay competitive and relevant, we need to increasingly leverage our technology to deliver the products and services our customers and stakeholders expect.

Delivering the right services and the best experiences become more difficult when so much of our IT team’s time is spent “keeping the lights on”. Countless hours every week are spent managing ageing legacy infrastructure and putting out avoidable fires on our network. For the last couple of decades this has been an unavoidable scenario.

As we’ve collected more data, we’ve invested more into unwieldy datacenters, and as our network sprawled ever outwards, we’ve invested even more into expensive network infrastructure. And now we’re being told those investments aren’t enough to keep up?

The good news, organisations no longer have to keep throwing good money after bad in order to stay on track with their digital transformation program. The tech buying arms race has been called off, as new models of tech consumption are already revolutionising the way we spend out IT budgets.

The cloud is the most obvious solution here. Whether utilising a public, private, or hybrid cloud model, organisations now have the ability to provision IT capacity for compute and storage as their business demands. This means they have the flexibility to scale capacity up or down depending on new opportunities or seasonal fluctuations.

The next step is leveraging Software as a Service (SaaS) applications that free businesses from the crippling contracts that vendors used to charge for on-premise installations of software. Without the need to manually patch updates and undergo annual reconfigurations, SaaS delivers faster functionality at a fraction of the price. This has meant that many smaller businesses who couldn’t previously justify the price of large enterprise software suites can now get into the game.

While new models of consumption are reducing some of our IT costs, we’re seeing a spike in complexity when we have to manage workloads and applications across on-premise and cloud environments. Throw into the mix the fact that our networks are growing exponentially each year due to mobility and now the Internet of Things (IoT), and any cost savings from the cloud are being quickly chewed up in other areas.

This rapidly changing technology landscape begs the question: Is this why we got into business? Is this a key part of our organisation’s mission? Do our customers and clients come to us because we have an army of IT personnel working behind the scenes on back-office IT functions? Is our number one strategic objective to be the best at managing IT infrastructure and networks?

Unless you’re a tech giant, the answer to the above questions will most likely be a resounding no. So why are we carrying on with the status quo?

We need access to the agility for seizing new business opportunities while also maintaining control over an increasingly complex IT environment. Fortunately, managed services now allows organisations to easily manage the conflict between these competing priorities.

By outsourcing the most labour intensive and complex functions within your IT environment such as network and database administration to external experts, you can begin freeing up your IT teams to begin delivering better services to employees and better experiences to your customers. To get the best results, a managed services provider will be a long term partner of your business with the objective of setting your organisation free from the unnecessary burden of managing complex IT.

About the author

As the Managing Director of Aryon, my team and I are here to reduce the complexity for organisations who want to take advantage of next-generation networks, infrastructure and workforce technology.  If you would like to discuss how your organisation can take advantage of new digital networks, infrastructure and technology without the added stress, please feel free to get in touch with me at dean.bartlett@116.90.41.25.