Is your IT partner driving you forward — or holding you back?

For a surprising amount of businesses, that important organisational pivot only came through reactive work alongside incumbent IT partners. Even if plans were previously afoot for digitalisation and modernisation programmes, they were often not far enough along or yet to begin when Covid-19 hit the UK.

Legacy systems, an inability to work remotely, resistance to change, IT operations that had been patched together in-house; these challenges are very real for many business owners, company directors and business operations leads. And they become a blocker when those businesses start looking to modernise their organisation’s ways of working.

The true cost of outdated IT

Today, 80% of the world’s corporate data resides in mainframes running technology that is more than half a century old; complexity in outdated systems can account for as much as 25% of ongoing maintenance costs.  SMEs face this same challenge too;  locked into a cycle, where IT budget and spend is consumed maintaining legacy systems rather than enabling the organisation.

Many organisations acknowledge that an update to how they operate day to day would allow them to become more agile and to unlock growth potential. However, those organisations are also unsure where to start, or face internal resistance to making progress.  Due to several barriers, tech adoption becomes slow or non-existent.

A lack of in-house technical leadership or an IT provider that’s purely transactional leads to stagnant IT systems.  This causes an accumulated technical debt and complex sub-optimal systems. By focusing on the transaction rather than the organisations strategic aspirations, these IT providers are actually holding back their clients – the inevitable result is ongoing inefficiencies in both operations and budget.

So is it time to reassess your strategic IT partner?

The power of IT as a managed service

A transactional IT provider will focus only on what you tell them you need; a true consultative partner in IT services will identify the means to amplify your business performance by identifying ways to improve your operational IT infrastructure and empower your people.

But, more than that, an IT partner should help you to create an IT strategy and drive its implementation – in turn, driving your business forward and helping to ensure its resilience in the face of uncertainty.

By working with a partner for IT managed services, you get experts to help you plan your infrastructure, mobilise quickly to address immediate issues, and deliver a phased implementation plan that creates the greatest business value. This partner works collaboratively to create an IT road map that is regularly reviewed with you to ensure it remains aligned to your goals and continues to amplify the performance of your business.

These partnerships are also valuable for the visibility it brings to your organisation: a robust partner is immersed in the industry, and can identify new technologies that might assist your business or find those technologies that might need to be retired early to prevent future IT debt. They work to understand your bigger picture, ensuring any short-term decisions are not going to hinder the long-term goal.

A proactive IT partner can help you find headroom

A consultative and proactive IT partner can give you the headroom to reassess the value that technology can bring to your organisation, helping you to reduce cost and risk while enabling your people and business to be more effective.

It’s critical to get some headroom to reassess how you approach IT.

1. Assess your current state; are your IT systems and processes fit for the current world, and how do you continue to ensure they are fit for the future?
2. What are the critical business processes, and how does technology underpin those processes?  What could you not do without?
3. What do you believe is holding you back?
4. Develop an IT strategy that’s flexible and adaptable. Consider seeking advice and support from a trusted third party expert to ensure you get the most robust and up-to-date technical advice.
5. How will you bring people with you on your organisation’s technology journey?
6. Create a road map for IT with phased modernisation and implementation, and keep it updated as new technology becomes available. This helps you to be proactive as older technologies reach their end of life, and to ensure a smooth transition to a more efficient tech stack.

Seek an IT partner that puts you in the driver’s seat

As long as you’re working with the right partners and the right tools, your business can both survive and thrive through any uncertainty and beyond. Discover more about how Thinc works as a trusted business applications and managed service provider, helping hundreds of businesses across the country to be more effective and more resilient.

We’re also offering a free resilience audit to UK businesses that want to know the current status of their IT infrastructure. Signing up for our self assessment is the first step to receiving your personalised report. To find out more or sign up today, click here.