Article How Service Providers can Smoothly Adapt to the Shifting Role of Business IT
By Insight UK / 13 May 2022 / Topics: Cloud Cybersecurity
By Insight UK / 13 May 2022 / Topics: Cloud Cybersecurity
Traditional IT in on-premise data centres is losing its appeal to new buyers. How can you adapt as a service provider to seize long-term opportunities and not be blinded by short-term constraints? What new role can you take on that does justice to your knowledge and skills?
The rise of the cloud and digital transformation has turned the entire IT world around. No organisation can be competitive without the agility of modern IT technology. This is reflected in how IT buyers work and the buying conditions they apply. IT investment decisions no longer focus on technology functionality only, but increasingly on business outcomes. The main question is how IT can add value to the business – faster, better, to more customers.
The digital transformation has triggered several trends. One is the power of the customer. Not even a decade ago, you built and delivered the latest IT technology in your on-premise data centre. The customer purchased what you delivered; IT was supporting the business. Now, in the cloud, all IT imaginable is available and the customer is in charge. He decides what he needs or wants in order to optimise business processes and compete more effectively. IT is no longer supportive but has become business-driven.
Another trend is that technology is changing ever faster. With hundreds of cloud services and products available and new ones released every day, subscription-based pay-as-you-go models are the norm. That is easy for end-customers, but a major challenge for the long-term profitability of service providers. How are you going to adapt your current business model to this? Of course, there will still be situations in which on-premises still has a future (think of business-critical apps and data), but cloud-first and also cloud-only models are advancing.
The trends above are great developments for end customers, but tricky at the same time: how can an average customer oversee and keep up with all the developments, their implications, and pitfalls? Just think of security, but also of privacy, availability, economics. Although the customer will be more in charge, there are also excellent opportunities here for service providers to respond to the changing needs of your customers. Yet this means that the traditional business model must change to a model that is primarily business driven.
In the long term, customers need a consultant who fills the gaps in their own knowledge and skills, particularly in a cloud-oriented world. A specialist who can, from a business requirements perspective, address technological and safety issues and risks that cloud buyers are missing out on. The role of business consultant with a technical background suits service providers perfectly, because of their years of knowledge and experience in IT and how customers want to use it. Of course, this new role calls for adjustments in skills, resources and practices. And true, that is a challenge, but certainly not impossible: it is an extension of all the knowledge and expertise that you already have in-house as a service provider.
Customer needs are changing. Technology is overwhelming. And that is exactly where your opportunities as a service provider lie. Your years of knowledge and experience with IT and what customers want are the key differentiators for success. Change is a must, and it is happening now. The opportunities are closer than you think.
At Insight, we help service providers realize their business ambitions in a multi-cloud world and find new ways forward. As a multi-vendor software licensing, workload, and cloud platform specialist, we can guide you through all stages of your strategic cloud journey. We help you set up subscription-based services and accelerate your business no matter where you are in your journey. Contact one of our cloud specialists for a talk.
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