April 9, 2024
I remember when referring to someone as having their head in the clouds was an indication that they were not paying enough attention to what was going on around them due to the distraction of unrealistic or difficult to grasp ideas.
Conversely, when one had their feet firmly planted on the ground, it meant that they had a sensible or practical understanding of the world around them.
When the talk turns to one of digital transformation, it is very easy to get lost in a cloud of terminology and overarching expectations of what has to take place to ensure that you are keeping up with everyone else. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why that despite organizations acknowledging the importance of digitally reinventing their business, a McKinsey study found that only 23 percent of the 1,600 companies surveyed had an existing digital strategy.
A Question Of Legacy
Right off the bat, I want to stress that while the cloud is an important option in the digital realm, it is not in and of itself a solution. And while I do not want to make the process of digital transformation sound overly simple as it does take careful consideration and planning, the fact is that transforming your business comes down to one very simple truth; you cannot move into the digital realm with old technology. In short, and from a feet on the ground standpoint, legacy technology can’t get you to the cloud or anywhere else.
In talking about the negative impact of legacy systems in the ERP world, Gartner had this to say; “A system that is not sufficiently flexible to meet changing business demands is an anchor, not a sail, holding the business back, not driving it forward.” The same can be said for the IT world as well.
On The Ground And In The Cloud IT Transformation
Harnessing the capabilities of modern technology from the edge to the core, to the cloud is the key to transforming your business, and a key part of the Dell Technologies Advantage is IT transformation.
For example, Dell EMC provides enterprise-grade infrastructure solutions that allow you to futureproof your environment and focus on innovation rather than administration. Virtuestream allows you to host mission-critical workloads in the cloud and offload certain IT functions as managed services to better focus on driving forward your business.
My point here is that in conjunction with Digital, Workforce, and Security, transforming your IT is essential if you want to move beyond the cloud to meet your business goals in a rapid, cost-efficient and effective manner.
In the end, you can be in the cloud while at the same time having your feet planted firmly on the solid ground of a transformed IT infrastructure.
Join me at Activate Digital 2019 where you will be able to learn more about modernizing, automating, and digitally transforming your IT infrastructure.