Digital transformation is moving up the agenda of both IT and business leaders in line with the rising level of customer expectations.

Business leaders see digital transformation as an essential and inevitable step to success. They recognize that the application of technology and cloud-based applications to key business processes is vital, particularly those that are customer-facing.

The aim is to make the business more agile and connected, and enhance customer experience while streamlining business processes to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

Digital transformation is creating a demand for infrastructure that is agile, responsive and capable of continuous application delivery. Is your infrastructure ready for the transformation?

Infrastructure Transformation Essential

Speed is one of the main characteristics of digital transformation. The pressure is on to accelerate application release cycles, speed up customer service response levels, and manage incidents faster. All of those processes depend on an efficient, agile infrastructure. According to the consultancy Capgemini, “Your business can only go as fast as its IT infrastructure. Simply put, infrastructure automation doesn’t just accelerate infrastructure. It accelerates the business processes you apply it to.”

Integrate the Environment

A digital-ready environment will have to integrate legacy applications and infrastructure with newer technologies and cloud solutions. In that mixed environment, IT’s challenge is to manage workflows across diverse layers of infrastructure and applications. Integration of old and new processes and technologies with automation tools will be essential.

Part of the process is to break down silos so that data can flow freely across the organization. Integration will also help IT develop and deliver new services and applications faster to meet business demands.

Increase Automation

High levels of automation will be essential to enable IT to cope with more tasks in shorter timeframes, with little room for error.

A Forrester study found that 57 percent of IT leaders surveyed planned to implement new automation technologies to improve IT flexibility and agility. Manual processes simply could not cope with the demands.

Optimize User Experience

In digital businesses, uptime is critical because it impacts both employee productivity and the quality of the services organizations offer their customers. User experience is one the most important metrics used to measure the effectiveness of digital transformation.

By automating infrastructure assessment, IT teams can monitor performance continuously, quickly identify problems and prioritize scheduled and proactive maintenance. Automated assessment tools like VTG’s ZENfra provide detailed reports on the assessment, which identify infrastructure assets that may be underperforming, reaching service milestones or proving unreliable.

The team can then plan a program of upgrades or replacements to maintain service levels and minimize downtime. By carrying out frequent infrastructure assessments, teams can access up-to-date information that helps them deal with potential problems proactively before they lead to downtime.

Take a Comprehensive Approach

Infrastructure automation underpins successful digital transformation and adds value to the business. Automation should cover a wide range of processes, including business continuity, change management, server lifecycle management, integrated provisioning, compliance tasks and maintenance tasks. This comprehensive approach doesn’t just support digital transformation, it also reduces costs and improves productivity in the IT department.

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