Middle market companies are challenged with leveraging their investments in Digital technology and IT infrastructure. Their systems are typically a patchwork quilt of software and hardware products that have been bolted together. They need systems that are scalable, sustainable, cost effective, available 24×7, (more…)
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Are Your Digital Technology Platforms and Information Technology Processes Aligned With Your Business? – 8 Questions You Need to Answer
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To DC or not DC that is the question – Data Center (DC) and Cloud Strategies – Part I
As cloud services have proliferated in the last decade, companies are increasingly asking themselves if they really need to have their own in-house datacenter. The digital footprint and budget for small companies often does not warrant the cost (more…)
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INOCULATING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AGAINST ANTI-STRATEGY – PART IX
The first blog in this series identified the phenomenon of Anti-Strategy as well-intentioned decisions made by senior leaders that are functionally focused because of a lack of a clear business strategy. With digital and information technology (IT) getting firmly established as a strategic corporate asset for middle market companies, we turn our attention to (more…)
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Business going increasingly Digital? – Rethinking Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
An earlier blog talked about the building blocks for aligning and integrating IT with the business. As IT becomes increasingly intertwined with the core operations of the company it’s time to take a fresh look at traditional middle market approaches to IT related Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR). (more…)
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A Strategic Approach to Assessing IT Infrastructure
We have often heard middle market client executives say, ‘We continue to spend a lot of money on our IT Infrastructure, but how do we know that we are getting our money’s worth? Are our existing technology and software investments effectively meeting our current needs? Are our IT/IS platforms serving the company’s current life cycle needs and are they (more…)
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Kick Your Total Cost of Ownership – TCO Process up Another Notch
In an earlier blog, we examined why having a process in place to capture Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is important for middle market companies, and even more so for Digital Technology organizations. We saw how any plan for taking out cost, driving revenue, or maximizing asset utilization, can be fraught with risk, without (more…)
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Building Blocks for IT Alignment and Integration
For better or worse, business and IT are inextricably linked and IT alignment and integration into the business and its marketplace is of critical importance. Middle market companies face numerous challenges such as mounting competition from global markets with cheap labor pools, a patchwork quilt of business systems and dealing with clients that expect companies to engage them when, where and how it suits them. Leveraging technology to meet these and many other business challenges requires that a business: (more…)
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Digital Technology and the Importance of the Total Cost of Ownership
Digital Technology organizations are recognized as business enablers and an effective Total Cost of Ownership process is one of the critical tools they should bring to a business. Digital Technology professionals who understand and can articulate the complete business impact of technology products or services become indispensable strategic partners and are sought after by management boards. Revenue growth and increased profits are (more…)
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Should IT Infrastructure be in your Top 3 business priority?
Historically, IT Infrastructure has been viewed as a “cost center” and IT Operations “a necessary evil” because significant human and financial capital expenditures have been required to maintain a functional system. Over the last few years, middle market companies are beginning to realize that IT infrastructure can be used as a competitive advantage. It needs to be (more…)
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Approaching the Multi-Cloud Management Paradigm
McKinsey predicted in its 2016 IT-as-a-Service Cloud and Enterprise Cloud survey that enterprises are rapidly adopting Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud for their primary workloads. It predicted that the adoption of multi-cloud strategies will jump from (more…)