Enterprises are slow to adopt ITaaS
Enterprises are looking to adopt IT-as-a-service (ITaaS) models and modernise their digital systems in a bid to become more competitive, but recently published research suggests most aren’t budging on their existing strategies. Michael Corcoran, senior managing director, global growth and strategy at Accenture, the firm that commissioned the research, told BCN that leaning more on cloud services, using analytics and becoming more automated could help them speed up the transition.
The transition to ITaaS is up there with DevOps and Agile when it comes to cultural and organisational modernisation and service improvement. It implies IT moving from being a monolithic procurement centre to a dynamic internal service provider, something most big organisations need to do in order to more effectively compete in digital.
Accenture and HfS Research surveyed 716 enterprise service buyers and found that 53 per cent of senior executives view ITaaS as critical for their organisation, yet 68 per cent of respondents said their core enterprise processes will not be delivered as-a-service for five or more years.
The research suggests this may be partly due to differing opinions or objectives within the organisations polled. More than half of service buyer senior leaders view aaS as critical and 61 per cent are ready to replace legacy providers in order to achieve their desired outcomes. But the same can’t be said for middle manager and delivery staff: just 29 per cent see the value of aaS in the same way.
“Many enterprise operations executives and service providers must make intrinsic changes to how they operate to stay relevant in an uncertain and challenging future,” said Phil Fersht, chief executive and founder, HfS Research. “It’s the forward-thinking service buyers and providers who set out their vision and path forward for sourcing with defined business outcomes aligned to the as-a-service ideals, that will achieve success. The conservative among us who refuse to accept these times of unprecedented, disruptive transition will be competitively challenged.”
Corcoran told BCN that much of the onus is on service providers, which need to invest in developing as-a-service capabilities. But enterprises also need to deploy the right mix of technologies and invest in the right skills to make the transition happen.
“By effectively moving to the cloud and applying the right digital technology, automation, artificial intelligence and analytics to unlock competitive advantage from data, and utilizing talent smartly, companies are in a better position to innovate faster, create new services and drive business outcomes that positively impact their top and bottom-line,” Corcoran explained.
“49 per cent of today’s enterprise buyers expect to move to a “wide-scale transformation of business processes enabled by new technology tools/platforms” in just two years. So it’s clear that many operational leaders are recognizing the need to steer their enterprises away from legacy delivery models and move towards the cloud and its material business outcomes.”