If It Aint Broke Say Its Obsolete

I recently visited a customer who took me on a bout of the visitor's rather impressive datacenter.  As I was about to leave the pristine environment I noticed a tangled mass of cables and an isolated server that looked oddly out of place. Beingness naturally inquisitive, I asked what it supported. With a wry smile my host responded with, "Oh, that's not broken so nosotros don't set it." This line got me thinking a lot about business concern and IT strategy.

In It, we've become accustomed to managing services the aforementioned way. We keep our heads down and our systems running, prevent outages, and implement new applications. In business, our competitors play the same game, so nosotros pay close attention to making sure our services perform at optimal levels.

[Buying business software can be tricky concern. Read: 6 Enduring Truths About Selecting Enterprise Software.]

This is, and always volition be, of import. Only with the digital revolution, just running an IT store better than anyone else doesn't guarantee anything. Rather, success will depend on how chop-chop you market your offerings, how y'all structure your Information technology services, and especially how well y'all understand the pivotal office IT plays when it comes to remodeling your business.

To draw a parallel from the cut-throat world of retail fashion, clothing and accompaniment shop Zara has go a huge success by developing a disruptive new strategy -- and not considering they have ameliorate stores than their competitors. They looked at what many in their industry regarded every bit the "not broken" element -- slow fourth dimension to market from initial garment blueprint to shop floor (the tangled cables, if you like), and fixed it with a unique approach (unified blueprint and manufacturing). Similarly, Netflix devastated the home video market, not because their employees worked harder than video shop employees, merely because they challenged traditional thinking -- thinking that wasn't really broken, just out of pace with the move to digital content consumption.

In that location are valuable takeaways here for It pros.

Running an outdated IT strategy and managing the status quo is a recipe for disaster. The alternative is to work with the concern to continuously review existing business models, re-examine toll structures and reduce operational debt to the point where IT is able to deliver the types of new applications and services that customers want.

Of course, none of this is piece of cake if the entire organization is entrenched in the "non broken, don't fix it" mindset. But fortune favors the bold who challenge traditional thinking.

Hither are four reminders for the more strategically inclined:

IT needs to watch over the concern: No other enterprise function bridges the business like It. Equally such, strategists should be constantly surveying the tech startup and venture majuscule landscape to decide which new business models are confusing and/or present opportunities. This isn't about looking at what you can technically practise amend, but about developing the smarts to question whether existing processes and attitudes could exist cleaved and and so convince those unwilling to modify the status quo that a change is needed.

Invest in continuous change: A successful business organization will radically re-model itself when necessary. To better support moves to collaborative consumption, smart businesses will begin to transform products into services. Extreme agility similar this requires similar capabilities from Information technology teams. For example, IT should evangelize the platforms needed for a traditional hardware manufacturer to offer new deject-based print services -- or assist an electricity provider reduce production based on predicting patterns of consumption using avant-garde smart meters.

Ruthlessly prioritize and consolidate: If your business abides past "If it ain't broke, don't fix information technology," then chances are your visitor will have many broken things. In my experience, this usually manifests itself as discrete applications operating on dedicated hardware and unsupported software. They're costly to run with up to seventy% of the It upkeep dedicated to non "fixing" them. Better services like integrated mobile apps to increase workforce productivity won't come inexpensive, then outset ruthlessly alternative your entire application portfolio to fund new initiatives. Only remember, this shouldn't be restricted to older applications. Without good governance, shiny new objects like mobile can quickly become the maintenance burden of tomorrow -- especially if your company is juggling a bunch of similar app development projects or supporting hundreds of dissimilar device types and operating systems.

End meeting and showtime thinking: Innovation can't be institutionalized or conducted in a formal group setting. Besides often rigid brainstorm sessions forestall gratuitous-thinking and result in conventional outcomes. That's fine if you have well understood problems to solve, just if you lot're looking for innovation, you take to remember beyond the confines of the enterprise. This can involve building external developer networks with open data and APIs, engaging customers in ideation projects, or it could exist as simple as encouraging your introverted thinker types to speak upward.

And then the side by side time you lot hear the blench-worthy phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," stop and think. Persisting with a rigid It strategy is as bad as ignoring that tangled mess of cables in the data center. Always remember, it'due south the "non broken" things in business that provide the best opportunities for innovation.

Peter Waterhouse is a senior technical marketing advisor for CA Technologies' strategic alliance, service providers, cloud, and industry solutions businesses.

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Source: https://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/digital-business/its-famous-last-words-if-it-aint-broke-dont-fix-it/d/d-id/1113337