Many companies' IT landscapes are built around large, tailor-made systems and a monolithic architecture. Solutions that once perfectly suited the business's needs, but today can be a heavy and time-consuming affair to maintain.
In a time when many companies experience constant change and want to take advantage of new business opportunities, it causes concern if the IT solutions do not keep up. We need solutions that are geared for rapid change, can meet new requirements, and above all, ensure easy access to data. And this can be achieved more simply than it may initially sound.
Company success can be reflected in their digitalization
Ultimately, most companies exist to make money, which is only possible by being relevant and innovative to customers. One must quickly be able to deliver on development tasks, ensure modern and agile solutions, and robust performance – and this often clashes with a sea of operational tasks.
Many companies are still stuck in manual processes and inefficient workflows, such as when orders and customers must be created, when product data must be kept up to date, and when data and reporting must be shared. This drains the company's ability to operate efficiently, which is more feasible if processes were automated, for example.
I have no doubt that companies that have made significant progress in their digitalization journey have a significant competitive advantage.
Our ambitions must be sky-high
It's no secret that many companies have begun moving their infrastructure, applications, integration, and data out of their on-premises environments and into the cloud. This ensures the scalability and flexibility that is needed.
However, I encounter companies that are still hesitant because they need to invest money upfront to modernize their IT landscape. And yes, the cloud journey may be more expensive in the short term compared to the existing on-prem model.
But as all strategists know, we need to look forward and see things from a broader perspective, and here I dare to bet my old hat that the investment will yield returns in just a few years. Consider the costs of wasted working hours, declining competitiveness, and lost revenue from not executing the strategy the company needs to thrive in the future.
Do your systems communicate?
A good place to start the digitalization journey is by looking at your integrations. The modernization journey and the shift from on-prem to cloud mean that you need to rethink your system integrations and build a secure bridge from the old solutions to the new.
Here you can advantageously look into Microsoft's Azure Integration Services, which is Microsoft's go-to platform for integrations and API management in Azure. It should be seen as a complete toolbox, where you have all the components ready that you need to create a modern event-driven microservices architecture.
The strength of the platform is that you can easily connect your respective systems (both on-prem, Cloud, and SaaS) in a "loosely coupled" setup – so the business is always updated with the latest information and data. When you need to replace old solutions with new ones, you simply disconnect the old ones and connect the new ones. It's that simple.
Recommendation: Break the journey into parts
Personally, I believe it will be difficult to fulfill the company's strategy if they continue to run on flat tires with an outdated IT setup - and that's why it's essential to get the digitalization journey started. Of course, it may seem like a big challenge in terms of time and money if you think everything needs to be done at once - but the journey can easily be divided and taken gradually.
I always recommend companies to:
- Prioritize the effort based on the company's strategy. Where are improvements and characteristics needed that the current IT setup cannot fulfill to support the strategy and recustomer journey?
- Analyze the company's current situation and identify goals and priorities for the transformation. For example, is there a need to modernize applications, migrate older infrastructure, improve security, ensure access to data, or implement better DevOps practices?
- Start the transformation based on the prioritized action plan
Happy transformation!
Shall we change the subject?
Do you think the blog post was interesting? And would you like to get guidance on how exactly your company embarks on the digitalization journey and creates integrations between your solutions?
You are welcome to contact me directly.
Kenneth Yderskov Jørgensen
Senior Account Executive
Kenneth.jorgensen@twoday.com
+45 31 40 66 28