April 9, 2024
I remember someone telling me that “everything starts to look like a nail when you only have a hammer.”
For those of us in the IT world, it would only be natural to consider these words in the context of a product. However, I saw the deeper meaning in that more than being a physical thing; what they were talking about, in reality, were the ideas and perceptions, and the way we approach solving customer problems. Specifically, the way that one normally defines a problem is directly related to the solution or solutions they have to offer. Hence, if you only have a hammer being the solution, then the customer’s problem is a nail. Seeing it any other way would mean that you can’t help that customer, so they better have a nail.
In the digital age, this square peg in a round hole approach won’t cut it, not that it ever did. If you only have a hammer, you had better expand your tool chest rather than trying to confine a customer’s needs to your ability to deliver a predetermined solution.
The Age Of The Multi-Vendor Environment
While an organization can expand its tool chest organically – especially within the framework of its core competencies, building strategic multi-vendor partnerships provides a level of agility that creates for the end-user client a sure and streamlined pathway to digital transformation success.
The multi-vendor IT Environment is happening due to the fragmentation of IT Applications and infrastructure stacks. In times of flux there become a large number of different voices advocating for their vision of how to solve problems. During this time, it’s very risky for enterprises and customers to make bets on the future of their business (or IT back-end). Even in light of the direct benefits of making a change (monetary, process, etc.) this fear and hesitation persist.
To mitigate this risk on behalf of our customers, Lenovo has decided to partner with the best of breed infrastructure software vendors.
In what Lenovo calls the “channel first model” we enable partners to collectively and collaboratively leverage their respective strengths to better align their capabilities with the client’s real-world needs in both the immediate and ongoing future.
Through this progression of aligning partner capabilities with client priorities, we are then able to better facilitate and deliver the right outcomes at the right time.
IT (Information Technology) to IT (Intelligent Transformation)
By looking beyond homogeneous technologies, to proactively engage as well as extend the market reach of our strategic vendor partnerships, we are in reality providing the end-user with a heterogeneous solution that is right for them.
In a hyper-converged environment, this is especially important given factors such as constrained budgets, limited human resources and the need for a flexible infrastructure whether it be in an on-premise or off-premise cloud.
In the end, moving beyond the hammer to provide a complete and adaptable set of tools to our clients is not only Intelligent Transformation, but it is also the right transformation approach for the digital age.
Join my team and me at Activate Digital 2019 as we will be sharing in greater detail Lenovo’s vision and capability for enabling you to realize your digital transformation objectives.
Use the following link to reserve your space today!