Futureproof your enterprise... or pay the price

Big data, cloud, mobility and security have transformed the way we do business. These four themes have been dominating the IT landscape, ushering in a new era and bringing with it new capabilities and new expectations. We’ve seen the development of new waves of workloads; changing architectures and deployments; and new ways to consume IT from the data centre to the end-user device. Your IT department and infrastructure must have the agility and flexibility to keep up with an unpredictable and fast-moving future to ensure yours is a ‘future-ready’ enterprise.

Before you start shaking at the thought of the costs associated with becoming future-ready, stop - being future-ready isn’t a rip-out-and-replace solution. Rather, it acknowledges today’s rapidly evolving environment and enables your business to quickly adapt to new technologies now and into the future.

Businesses need to be deliberate with their IT infrastructures, building a bridge between their current IT solutions and the innovative technologies of tomorrow. Building this flexibility in now will enable businesses to continue to grow while optimising their existing IT applications and performances.

There are three relatively simple guidelines to follow as you prepare your IT for the opportunities ahead.

Make IT front of mind. The realm of where IT sits within a business has shifted. Businesses need to understand the ‘value creator’ that IT can be and see it as the route to greater productivity, innovation and growth. IT has become a unit of the profit-making business, no longer just a supporting function, and it is increasingly important to the bottom line.

Take a holistic approach. Historically, businesses managed their IT in silos with the various elements not necessarily complementing each other. Businesses have a complex network of IT solutions, some that work together and some that don’t. But there is a better way. Integrated infrastructure is built to work from device to the data centre to the cloud, seamlessly and securely. This is imperative when you consider how cloud computing, big data, mobility and security are reshaping the world in which we do business.

Say no to lock-ins. As consumers, we have never liked being locked into contracts - witness the new plans on offer from phone carriers who have had to adapt to their customers’ wants. So why would businesses lock themselves into expensive proprietary systems? Businesses have more IT options than ever before, so if your business is already locked in, it’s okay. Vendors are devoting massive amounts of time and resources to innovations that are bridging the gap, creating enterprises of the future which are open, modular and flexible.

Using these three guidelines, the time is ripe for all businesses to look at their IT infrastructure and ask: are we future-ready?

John McCloskey is the General Manager of Enterprise Business at Dell Australia/New Zealand. He is responsible for developing and executing the go-to-market strategies for the server, storage, networking, software and services lines of business.