This week the latest episode of Star Wars, the Force Awakens, is coming to a cinema near you. We will be enthralled by combat scenes between good and evil using technologies that have to a great extent yet to be invented. Nevertheless dreams and problem-solving are where innovation begins, and from science fiction, society has developed concepts such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to enable mundane tasks to be completed by robotic process automation.
Stepping back from outer space to the here and now where functioning light sabres are just a thing of our imagination, IT is constantly looking for new ways to innovate and to embrace ongoing enrichment. Most enterprises are talking about innovation and embracing change, but very few are actually able to realize and execute on it – particularly when it comes down to solving network latency issues.
Bimodal IT coherency
In spite of receiving some negative press, Bimodal IT is perhaps the answer and the best approach to developing two separate yet coherent modes of IT delivery. The first mode involves the traditional side of IT where IT teams focus on the safety, predictability and reliability of an organisation’s IT environment. The second mode is perhaps the crux of bimodal IT: It is centered on innovation and it allows IT teams to explore, to identify new ways of using technology in order to address business demands in a fast and agile manner.
Shaping innovation
Yet although they are separate they need to work together in order to shape innovation. So it’s worth noting at this juncture that Gartner has found that 45% of CIOs are currently employing bimodal IT as part of their IT service management strategy. By 2017 the analyst firm predicts that 75% of organizations will have implemented bimodal IT strategies in order to adapt to rapid business growth, to develop new products and services with new technologies. There will come a point where Mode 2 isn’t transient and throwaway but Mission Critical, and though we haven’t crossed that threshold yet, we will find that Mode 2 is really Mode 1 in disguise. The key challenge is to keep ahead of business demand – particularly as mid-sized enterprises have a limited number of staff. The problem is that not enough time is being set aside for developing new approaches and for accommodating new developments such as Bridgeworks’ PORTrockIT, which inserts machine learning into the network and data movement environment, in order to tackle the dark force of latency, which can put business performance at risk of failure.
Empowering IT
IT teams need to be empowered to support new technologies, to embrace change in innovation where it enables an organization to work without the need for human interference which can lead to errors being made that can threaten business continuity and performance. For all organizations, by using machine intelligent software, they benefit from unlocking precious resource to carry out more valuable business critical functions. Gartner believes that IT teams need to be authorized to choose partners that are digital accelerators – particularly in our ever increasingly digital world. CXO’s need to address their differences too as they should work together in order to lead digital innovation and change.
Only then can the Force of innovation be truly with organisations. At Bridgeworks, it’s already arrived, with PORTrockIT.
Don’t let the Empire of Latency strike back, contact me Claire Buchanan at claireb@4bridgeworks.com to ensure that you are able to insert innovation at the heart of your strategy.
Further reading:
- The 2016 CIO Agenda – Building The Digital Platform: http://www.slideshare.net/denisreimer/2016-cio-agenda
- Why Ford’s CIO is shifting gears to bimodal IT:
http://www.cio.com/article/3015360/it-strategy/why-fords-cio-is-shifting-gears-to-bimodal-it.html - PORTrockIT:
http://www.4bridgeworks.com/products/portrockit/
