For every business today, digital transformation is imperative for surviving and thriving in the digital age. However, support for legacy technology will continue to be a factor because transformations are gradual, and become a mix of the old and the new. We see this specifically around the management of multi-cloud strategies. In a recent VMware and MIT Technology Review report that surveyed 1,300 IT leaders, 62 percent of respondents cited the integration of legacy systems as their biggest challenge in multi-cloud.
At the heart of the challenge of supporting legacy technologies is the IT staffing challenge. While strategic IT staffing can provide options that address legacy technology, there are a number of reasons why this goes beyond a basic understanding of that approach.
For one, businesses face the challenge of attracting top young talent with expertise in old technology. Businesses are increasingly facing an urgent demand for young talent that understands legacy code and mainframes, for example, while still being well-versed in new technologies such as SDN and IoT.
With the reality of the IT skills gap, cost is also a major factor as legacy skills become scarce and therefore more expensive. Maintaining and integrating legacy technology is a challenge every business faces. The push for modernization seldom matches the IT budget at any given time, so a certain amount of legacy technology will remain.
That may be due to the fact that certain technologies perform a specific, critical function or because the cost of replacing the technology is greater than the value of maintaining it. Having modernization expertise is also a challenge because it requires an understanding of legacy and new technologies and how they fit into budgeting as well as long-term business objectives.
Most organizations pursue incremental transitions, upgrading or adding technology piecemeal, followed by adjustments to workflows. IT leaders must be capable of seeing long-term business objectives in order to proactively plan for a digital future.
This planning requires a broad scope of understanding in terms of project management expertise, which many in-house IT teams lack to some degree. Having the support of project management that is well versed in working with a variety of business objectives must also be balanced with the vendor relationships that can make that digital transformation possible while embracing legacy technology.
Many companies lack the diverse vendor relationships necessary to support the implementation of new technologies while also being able to integrate and embrace legacy technology where needed. While developing varied vendor relationships is a significant challenge for individual businesses, the lack of IT certifications to understand and support those vendor technologies can be both time and cost prohibitive.
Moreover, maintaining the objectivity to both develop and manage projects while keeping the long-term business interest and objectives in mind requires a great deal of experience in business analysis across all types of businesses and needs. The inevitable move to the cloud via a hybrid, multi-cloud and migration strategy must also be taken into account as part of IT modernization and determining the place of legacy technology.
Because all of these decisions and aspects must be addressed simultaneously, many businesses seek out an outside managed service provider with both legacy and new technology expertise. The tangible ROI and reductions in CAPEX and OPEX via the right IT strategy can provide a host of services and expertise that can implement a successful IT strategy.
This approach of having an MSP partner can deliver numerous opportunities that go far beyond just strategic IT staffing. The result is the delivery and implementation of a strategy that leverages legacy investments while integrating with new IT systems. In the end, this ensures that businesses continue to grow.