2022 appears set to be a crossroads for many organizations. The past two years have been incredibly challenging for businesses, including a rapid shift to remote work, unprecedented supply chain crises, and more. We continue to be inspired by the extraordinary adaptability we saw from our clients in response. While the COVID crisis is by no means over, we have seen more and more organizations become well-adjusted to this “new normal.”
Even a successful remote work transition, however, can introduce new management complexities. In our experience, companies are navigating one of the following two issues:
- Teams focus on replicating the nitty-gritty “tactical” workflows that took place when they were in the office. This approach can help ensure small but crucial tasks don’t get forgotten. But work with longer-term strategic value can become lost in the mix.
- The organization focuses on maintaining its core long-term strategy during the transition to remote work. This approach can help the organization stay focused on the future, but crucial day-to-day responsibilities risk being neglected (or worse, forgotten completely) as the organization goes remote.
As more and more COVID-related business challenges are solved, our experience suggests that many organizations are well-positioned to pivot back toward executing both their tactical work requirements and long-term strategic vision in 2022. And IT strategy is an integral part of this pivot.
In this blog, we take a look at why a third-party support team can be so helpful as you re-focus heading into the new year. Finally, we conclude with a review of some of our top blog articles of 2021.
A New Year, A New Chance to Re-Focus on Your Long-Term IT Strategy
In some instances, like remote work, COVID-related disruptions accelerated the implementation of enhanced technology capabilities which could provide value for years to come. In many cases, however, the sudden, urgent need to roll out COVID-driven adaptations caused longer-term projects to be set aside. Many organizations could simply not afford to think about navigating a major cloud or software migration in the midst of the COVID crisis.
Big changes to business-critical IT systems (like ERP software) can also be incredibly disruptive if they are not meticulously planned. The additional workflows associated with a major upgrade, migration, or feature enhancement can place a major strain on internal IT teams. If stretched too thin, IT resources may have trouble keeping up with both administering existing systems and overseeing the new implementation, leading to issues all around.
In our experience, an expert third-party support team can be the ideal resource to help internal IT teams successfully navigate major long-term projects.
How Third-Party Support and Services Can Help
Consider the example of an organization that has decided to migrate to new ERP software over the course of the next several years. This migration involves complex, inter-dependent, and multi-phased work which has direct implications on the functionality of business-critical IT systems. An expert support team can provide valuable assistance by taking on responsibilities such as:
- Assuming a support role for legacy software, enabling internal IT resources to focus time and energy on planning and implementing new systems. This division of labor results in a more efficient and timely implementation of the newer system.
- Building temporary bridges between legacy and replacement systems, enabling a carefully phased implementation instead of a disruptive “Big Bang” implementation.
- Assisting in data extraction tasks to get legacy “at-rest” and “in-flight” data into newer systems, ensuring that crucial operational data is available (and that its integrity is ensured).
- Mapping out current processes and working with implementation planning teams to build comparable yet streamlined workflows. Thoughtfully planned workflows help protect business continuity and minimize new training requirements for employees.
2021: Year in Review for the PSGi Blog
We kicked off 2021 with an examination of the news that the future of IBM i and Power i appears to be secure in our article “Power i Keeps Rolling Toward 2032: Planning for Another Decade.” This news helps businesses that rely on Power i/IBM i make investments with the confidence that they can continue driving value for at least another decade. We also reviewed the current state of the IBM i release lifecycle, including a look at the valuable new security features in IBM i 7.4.
We followed up this news with a look at how IBM i’s ability to be integrated with other systems is an important part of its long-term value proposition.
While COVID may have forced many organizations to develop secure remote work capabilities out of thin air, these capabilities have provided incredibly valuable flexibility. And while it may not be the right long-term solution for every organization, remote work or a hybrid office environment is likely here to stay. In this article, we examine how the same value can stem from remote servers via platform-as-a-service.
We hope you will continue checking in with our blog in 2022. If you have questions about our managed services/hosting or expert enterprise application support team, please reach out to us.
