Issue link: https://insights.oneneck.com/i/1450344
CHAPTER 1 Understanding Enterprise IT Challenges 5 These materials are © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Enabling innovation Why is the change in focus from the technical operation to the business value so important for CIOs and IT in general? More than ever, organizations are turning to technology to enable innova- tion, but they are tired of infrastructure getting in the way. Leg- acy architecture has proven to be inflexible and expensive and, as business leaders seek to better align IT and the business, everyone is aware that the process begins with ensuring that infrastructure doesn't hold the business back. As business leaders have become more comfortable with tech- nology and as they've gained a better understanding of what's possible, their tolerance for the traditional objections from IT is growing thin. One of the key drivers of this shift is the cloud, which enables new workloads to be deployed relatively easily in the cloud — with or without support from IT. This development raises new concerns and challenges for IT as business units simply go around IT to get what they want. As the cloud grows increasingly accessible, this is easier to do than ever. It does, however, introduce multiple areas of risk to the organiza- tion, including security challenges and potential service overlap that can create inefficiencies. Supporting digital transformation On the innovation front, we would be remiss if we didn't talk about digital transformation, something of a buzzword du jour, but one that is important to understand. Digital transformation isn't just closing the IT/business divide. It's a fundamental cultural trans- formation that requires the melding of IT with customer service to enable new ways of reaching and retaining customers. Whether that initiative is as deceptively simple as being able to keep track of where your pizza is in the delivery process, or something more substantial, these efforts are ingraining technology into the busi- ness in deep and profound ways. Infrastructure simply can't get in the way. The initiatives that are derived from these efforts must be able to assume that infrastruc- ture is there to consume. Legacy infrastructure doesn't fit the bill, but hybrid cloud scenarios that seamlessly combine on-premises and public cloud solutions do.