Chief Innovation Officer. That’s the future for IT leaders seeking to place technology at the center of the conversation of how to grow their businesses. The modern-day IT leader is more than just the technologist who understands how the network works or the executive who can explain why cloud matters. Today’s IT leaders add value to the business and identify the opportunities where technology-driven business models can propel the enterprise forward. The fastest growing taxi service in the world is a technology business. So is one of the highest profile hospitality and lodging businesses. Uber and Airbnb could not exist if not for the visionary leadership of founders who understood how technology could revolutionize a traditional business transaction. These disruptive businesses underscore the need for organizations to develop a solid and agile foundation to react to new opportunities.
Applying the Lessons of Innovation
The same principles apply to any business competing on a regional or global scale. Healthcare organizations in America’s heartland can connect local resources to national experts via the cloud and high-speed broadband, bringing in the best and brightest talent for data-driven diagnosis. Cities can harness the power of IoT and analytics to improve the quality of life, keep traffic flowing, and deploy public safety resources where they are needed. Local schools can connect with universities across the country or across the world to expand both learning and cultural experiences for their students. But getting to this reality requires thinking beyond just boxes and buzzwords. Hybrid cloud might be a compelling technology, but if it doesn’t match your requirements, then it becomes a complicated way to spend more money. Just because a technology appears in every article you read in the computer trade press, you still need to consider if it’s right for you.
Getting there means asking the right questions and understanding not only the “what and how?” of your technology decisions, but also the “why?” It’s in asking the question, “why?” where the value of innovation comes to light.
Partnering for Success
At ISG Technology, innovation is at the heart of our mission. But not innovation for innovation sake. Innovation starts with the right technology foundation, allowing businesses to focus on opportunities, instead of constantly patching and maintaining an IT Infrastructure designed for the past. Only with a solid foundation to work from, is innovation possible.
Innovation can take many forms, including developing a “Bring Your Own Device” policy, for example. For a financial firm, it might mean building a data center foundation on converged infrastructure based, for example, on our partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise for the HPE Hyper Converged 380 solution, powered by Intel® Xeon® processors. A local service business may reimagine its core value proposition based on a technology-driven business model.
IT Making a Difference
Wherever IT leaders start their journey to innovation, the measurement of success will be to close the gap between the current state and the destination. In this journey, IT leaders must be mindful of balancing time, money, and resources to achieve their goals.
Technology for technology’s sake adds little value. The newest server, the faster storage like the HPE 3PAR StoreServ all-flash storage array, or the most hyped software is not always the right answer. ISG is a partner who can help ask the right questions and build solutions which are aligned to the organization’s long-term goals and solve real business challenges. Whatever the final answer is, ISG is prepared to help you innovate; that’s when IT makes a difference.
Visit our resources to learn more about how you can modernize your infrastructure with ISG.
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