IT Modernization Journeys Require New Approach To Transformation

Prior to digital transformation to achieve new value creation, many companies undertake IT modernization initiatives to ensure systems can support the digital transformation. IT and shared services groups need to modernize so they can respond more effectively and quickly to the business needs for innovation and competitive advantage. We often find that companies don’t realize that IT modernization in a digital world is very different from traditional transformations in the past. It’s a multi-year journey, and the changes cut across a company’s technology, people, process, talent and philosophy. So, it requires a different approach than traditional transformations. The experience of a leading global healthcare company serves as an example of a highly successful approach.

As the company’s COO of IT explained to me, the company faced a challenge of infrastructure instability and cost explosion. It wanted to modernize its operations to prepare the infrastructure as the backbone for the company’s agile, digital business world. They recognized that the modern technology landscape is about building the backbone operating model and competencies that prepare a company’s platform for digital. The company leaders knew it would be the foundation for success and, without the change, nothing could happen in a digital environment.

Years earlier, the company had outsourced its IT infrastructure to gain efficiency price points as IT was not the company’s core competency and was considered a “backbone service.” But the leadership team recognized they had to change that strategy for the digital world. They understood they needed to make a 180-degree shift in what constitutes core and in how to align the backbone costs to the overall thinking around digital.

Read more in my Forbes blog: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterbendorsamuel/2018/06/12/it-modernization-journeys-require-new-approach-to-transformation/#4ba436b35e19