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The upside is that you will find new ways to collaborate with your colleagues and, hopefully, be far more efficient and productive as a result. You should also be more resilient against upstarts trying to disrupt your business with new ways of working.
The downside is that you need to go through the process of change and develop in-house skills or bring in people with skills in vendor management and project management.
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Your digital transformation will have many moving parts and typically involve outsourcing much of the technical work to a small group of consultants and partners working together to make the change.
The risk with a project of this scale is that the project develops a momentum of its own and you, the client, can feel sidelined.
You need someone in your organisation to hold the vendors to account. They need to understand your business and keep a clear eye on the outcome of the transformation and represent you, the internal stakeholder, during the transformation process.
They must have an executive sponsor – the ear of management – and need to connect the business, the vendor and the businesses goals. They need to function as an operational project manager with an eye on your user requirements, the schedules and budgets. Above all, they need to hold the vendors to account – and be empowered by you to do so.
The first person to look at within your organisation to fulfil this role is your current head of, or a senior person in, your IT department. But it will depend on their skillset. In keeping up with modern solutions such as developing an IT infrastructure and managing it, it is crucial to have someone within who can do this.
Some old-school IT people came up through the ranks when IT was all about cabling routers and building PCs. If your senior IT people are in this mould, then they will have a steep learning curve. If they’re willing to embrace the learning curve and retrain, then they may be your ideal person for this role because they already understand your business well.
If you can’t find someone in-house, you may have to make some difficult staffing decisions and replace your current IT person with someone more skilled in working with external suppliers and services.
The third option is to find a specialist contractor to take on this role. They should be separate from the other teams brought in to do the work. You may also want to consider hiring this person first, to get to know your business and work with you to develop a list of requirements and goals that you can present to vendors.
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This process will start with a lot of research and some difficult decisions. You must critically evaluate your entire business, so you know your starting point.
Based on this thinking, ask yourself whether your staff have the skills to take you on the journey. Most importantly, can you identify the key person who will interface between business and project – the one who will hold the contractors to account?
Knowing your end-point – the business objectives that you are trying to achieve by making this change – will help you measure your success.
Armed with this knowledge, you’ll know who to hire internally and who to bring in from outside. Don’t be tempted to build an empire by hiring specialist IT staff for the transformation. If they’re good you won’t be able to afford them, and if they’re cheap, you don’t want them.
Bring in good people from a vendor or consulting firm on an as-needed basis. But be careful not to absolve yourself of all responsibility by outsourcing everything – you need that point person as the interface between business and project.
Tecala’s skilled consultants can support you on any stage of this journey – we can help you to evaluate your starting point, supply skilled staff to fill the gaps in your talent pool and help you to manage the project including managing an IT infrastructure. Why not give us a call to talk about what you are hoping to achieve.
By analysing your specific needs and priorities, we’ll give you a realistic and practical recommendation on what’s required to accelerate your modern architecture.
Our Senior Consultants will help you evaluate and understand your options, so you can make decisions that benefit both your business and your employees, while mitigating unnecessary risk.
Combining Strategy, Transformation, Management and Optimisation, we identify and remove the obstacles to a successful outcome, before you even know they’re there.
Step 1: Recap and review
Together we’ll examine the steps you’ve already taken in IT procurement and review the parameters for the architecture planning you’ll need in place going forward.
Step 2: Shape the
plan
Future planning for optimal performance, focusing on effective communication and collaboration, device lifecycle and configuration management and security.
Step 3: Identify your requirements
This is where we clearly identify the steps you need to have in place to develop your Strategic Technology Roadmap to create a Modern Dynamic Workplace.
Step 4: Get the
report
You’ll receive a high-level report with our recommendations to accelerate your modern architecture, and the next steps for delivering your Strategic Technology Roadmap.
With a high-level plan in place, you’ll have a clear understanding on the business case, benefits, and high-level budget considerations for your technology platform to accelerate your modern architecture. And you’ll be ready to leverage the Cloud to deliver the services and applications your teams need.
How successful was your business transition to a remote workforce during the COVID crisis? Read how the National Breast Cancer Foundation was able to transition to a remote workforce environment almost overnight, and with 93% employee satisfaction.
There’s nothing like a one in 100-year pandemic to test how your IT operations are performing and how prepared you are for change.
