Technology upgrades are not just for keeping up with the Joneses anymore. These days, organizations look to upgrade only when there is a business advantage to be earned.
Datalink Survey
This fact was the most important finding of a recent survey commissioned by Datalink. The survey focused on the opinions of IT professionals. Paul Lidsky is the CEO and President of Datalink, which is a cloud services provider and data center in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Lidsky had several comments to make about this recent shift regarding organizations and technology, including that IT upgrades are no longer just about the technology, for technology’s sake. Upgrades are controlled by business conversations between organizations’ CIOs and senior IT executives, and technology companies like Datalink.
Lidsky says, “I do several hundred … meetings a year with senior executives, and they never ask me a technology question. All they want to talk about is, ‘Here is a set of business objectives I have – can you help me with this?'”
What Lidsky is saying, is that IT executives have morphed into business executives in recent years. Instead of coming to companies like Datalink with specific technology needs to discuss, IT executives arrive with strategic business objectives, and ask for help on how they can achieve those goals.
Nevertheless, the survey’s results still show that approximately 32% of IT professionals say that IT investment decisions rely more heavily on IT operational goals, not business objectives. Lidsky’s response to this point is that regardless, that percentage used to be a lot higher. He says that although not every IT decision maker has decided to align with business, the shift towards aligning IT with business strategy is going to become increasingly prevalent, as this current trend shows no signs of slowing down. The reason, Lidsky points out, is that more IT executives are realizing that the best way to serve their organizations is to be enablers of their organizations’ strategic business objectives.
Additionally, the Datalink survey’s results show that the respondents’ companies are not holding public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud technologies at a high initiative priority. Does this bother Lidsky? After all, he is the CEO of a cloud services provider. He says that it does not … He believes that “‘ultimately, what we all believe is that most clients will end up with a hybrid model of some sort. Some don’t even realize they are doing it.'”
Public Cloud
A multi-tenant environment, where you buy a “server slice” in a cloud computing environment that is shared with a number of other clients
Private Cloud
Is the phrase used to describe a cloud computing platform that is implemented within the corporate firewall, under the control of the IT department
Hybrid Cloud
An integrated cloud service utilising both private and public clouds to perform distinct functions within the same organisation
However, that “most” does not necessarily mean “all,” and that is okay: “we also understand that there are many other business issues facing our clients that have nothing to do with whether or not they use cloud computing. And I think that is what the survey shows. While we talk about cloud computing all day, every day, it does not necessarily translate that every client is moving to a cloud computing model.”
Post Excerpt
The findings of a Datalink survey show that IT executives are increasingly shifting from a solely technology – focused role towards a business – objective accomplishment role.
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