A core differentiator for a successful business today rests on the readiness of its IT infrastructure. IT that matters in the new machine age prioritizes cybersecurity, innovation, time-to-market and customer experience over cost-cutting, according to Cognizant’s latest study.
The days of the IT department being responsible for only infrastructure and operations are gone. While the legacy IT industry of servers, databases and cables is still important, it has essentially become a utility. Now it takes a backseat to the need for an agile, flexible and quickly scalable technology foundation to drive business.
In a near future, IT mandate will stretch beyond the familiar realm of satisfying customers and employees, collaborating with the business and reducing costs, to sealing the customer relationship, discovering new business value and enabling business agility and innovation while also ensuring security.
Abandon the cost focus
Companies with legacy technology architectures? They face a dilemma: striking a balance between the present and future state of IT infrastructure. To achieve this equilibrium, the first ballast to discard is IT’s traditional obsession with cost-cutting.
The simple fact is, a lower cost but completely irrelevant backbone will condemn you to lose in whatever market you operate in. In an era when start-ups can disrupt entire industries in weeks or months, a company’s technological backbone should – indeed, must – give it the ability (and agility) to immediately adapt or, better yet, set the pace.
Change the mindset
Enterprises that view IT as a costly overhead, and not a competitive capability, will struggle to succeed in the new machine age. Changing this mindset within IT, and then selling the idea to the rest of the company, will be both a challenge and an opportunity for CIOs.
Learn more by downloading The Future of Infrastructure, a report based on interviews with more than 1,000 senior IT executives across industries in 18 countries.
