IT Must Adapt
or Become
Irrelevant
Ian Jansen van Rensburg, Senior Systems Engineering Manager at VMware Southern Africa,
discusses how IT can leverage virtualisation and
the cloud to drive efficiencies and improve its
ability to meet business expectations.
W
hen taking the leap from a physical to virtual or even a cloud-based environment in
a business, IT is obviously a central player.
However there are a number of steps to
be considered during the transition phase
and it is IT’s role to ensure that business
understands, embraces and benefits from these.
an outcome that matters. But often these conversations
are held and nothing transpires or is delivered from them to
support the business, hence the disillusionment by business when dealing with IT. Because the cloud is a ‘quick
win’ business strategy, it is an ideal time for IT to change
the way it is perceived and handled by the business. But
you need to get the mix right.
Let’s start at the beginning - it is important for business to
realise that the process or virtualisation is more like eating
an elephant in small bites as opposed to a rush to get the
job done. Yes, while smaller businesses will be able to
adopt new technologies faster than larger enterprises, the
fact remains that businesses that rush this process will still
fail.
Remember that you don’t need a grand entrance to virtualise or to enter the cloud. Start small and stay strategic.
Identify the ‘early wins’ within the business, those who will
benefit from change quickly and be able to demonstrate
immediate success to others in the company. Once you as
IT have shown value, you will then be in a position to build
trust, secure further funding from business and gain the momentum needed to deliver impact on an achievable scale.
In the mobile and cloud era we find ourselves in, business
runs the risk of thinking they know more than IT purely
because information is readily available and technology for
a large part has become plug and play. But the adage “look
before you leap” is particularly relevant as knowledge is
never as powerful as experience, and IT and business need
to strategize together.
Where do you start? Well let’s first ask some business
questions. How big is the enterprise? What parts of the
business need to be available in this new cloud based environment and what is the rationale? Does the company have
the finance