It’s well documented that the last two years has seen more digital transformation in business than in any other period since the arrival of the internet. According to a 2020 Gartner survey, 69% of boards of directors accelerated their digital initiatives and, in order to maintain operations, many businesses were forced to into wholesale change overnight. This affected everything from how services were delivered and customer experience right through to how employees communicated. Decisions on and changes to new technologies and IT requirements were, as a result, made at pace.
As the world starts to open again, following several lockdowns and many restrictions, and still with an uncertain path ahead, ways of working have undoubtedly changed forever. Now is the time to ask if the IT decisions made were the right ones, and if the technology you have invested in is appropriate for the future?
Nathan Carroll, Cloud Solution Architect here at M247 commented; “At the start of the pandemic, the benefits of making fast-paced decisions on new technology were clear and quick changes made it possible for many businesses to keep going and, in some instances even improved productivity. However, there was little time for in depth analysis or due diligence and, as the dust starts to settle, it could be the case that what made sense as a short-term fix, is not an appropriate solution for the business in the long term.
“Given the fact that so many people were working remotely and normal processes for technology training and induction were disrupted, it is also likely that many of the solutions that were introduced are not being used correctly or to their full potential.”
Unsurprisingly, cloud adoption also accelerated over the period with companies migrating assets to the cloud 24 times faster during the pandemic than before*. However, not all transitions were seamless and, whether businesses opted for a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud solution, the management and performance quite often are not being fully optimised.
Migration at speed combined with a lack of clarity of what is being used on-premise, can result in a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach, which may have left many businesses significantly over-spending on their cloud provision by as much as 20-50%**. Similarly, migration without the necessary network transformation means legacy infrastructure could be hampering cloud performance.
In a time of heightened cyber-crime, there are also many examples of companies suffering cloud security breaches during the pandemic which were down to avoidable misconfigurations, user error and poor security protocols. Meaning there are many good reasons to take the time to revisit your set up and assess if it’s still right for your business.
Carroll added, “Given the timing of the first Covid19 lockdowns, many businesses could be fast approaching contract renewals and, now that the dust has started to settle, it is a good time to take stock of how well technology infrastructure and applications are working for your business.”
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