IT evolution required to allow for innovation

Monday, 06 February, 2017

Innovation is taking a back seat to service requests for IT operations staff, according to a new report.

The research by Dimension Data found that innovation was on the decline because staff spend over 30% of their time on issue resolution and new service requests.

Despite this, according to the report, enterprises that do not evolve their IT business models could miss out on future market opportunities.

Over the past decade, technology has delivered consistent efficiencies, from saving costs to redeploying labour, contributing to leaner operations and meeting shareholder expectations. However, with the rise of the digital era, efficiency on its own is no longer sufficient. IT operations must support the execution of new digital business initiatives, and deliver a consistently high-availability IT infrastructure that meets end-user demand.

This requires sustainable IT optimisation that delivers better service level agreements (SLAs), greater efficiencies and higher performing infrastructure while minimising downtime risks. However, freeing up resources for innovation remains a challenge.

“Successful digital transformation requires the right mix of people, processes and tools. However, IT service automation platforms are expensive and time-consuming to develop and successfully integrate into hybrid IT environments,” said Dimension Data Group Executive for Services Bill Padfield.

While organisations know they must evolve their IT operations to be more strategic and less tactical, most in-house IT and development teams are still struggling to keep up. In fact, most companies that participated in the report said they still monitor and tune their IT in a disjointed manner, with only 14% reporting that their infrastructure is positioned for digitisation.

According to the report, only 20% of organisations claim they have fully automated and optimised their infrastructure, while the majority are on a path to automation but have not reached their goal.