Why It’s Time to Switch to a Business-Led IT Model

WHO’S IN CHARGE OF YOUR IT STRATEGY?

If your business relies on legacy IT infrastructure to support its operations, the news that you don’t control your own IT environment can come as a bit of a shock. After all, your business chose its current IT vendor, and you have the power to switch to a different provider – if you’re willing to take on the added hassle and cost.

The extensive cost of making such a transition is exactly how vendors have subtly wrested IT control out of your business’s hands. When companies become dependent on a single IT vendor to power their operations, the cost, complexity, and potential disruption of leaving that provider becomes too much for many businesses to voluntarily undertake.

As long as sticking with the existing IT vendor is cheaper and easier – at least in the short term – than migrating elsewhere, vendors know they can keep businesses complacent enough to accept the status quo. In the meantime, companies become even more reliant on their existing infrastructure, making the climb out of this vendor relationship ever more challenging, in terms of both logistics and cost.

VENDORS PUT THEIR OWN PROFITS FIRST

In the business world, competition breeds excellence – or, at the very least, value. But when IT vendors become too difficult to abandon, this sense of competition gradually dissolves. Rather than earning customer loyalty by creating value for your business, those IT vendors increasingly rely on solution lock-in as a cornerstone of customer retention.

As clients get taken for granted, vendors are able to shift their priorities toward strategies that better enrich their own bottom line. Over time, services get more expensive and system upgrades become more of an unnecessary cost. Nominal upgrades may be implemented to satisfy businesses, but the value created by these changes falls well short of the long-term benefits your business would otherwise gain in a competitive marketplace.

VENDOR LOCK-IN LIMITS YOUR ABILITY TO INNOVATE

VENDOR CHOICE GIVES YOUR BUSINESS NEGOTIATING POWER

Compared to the lack of competition created by single-vendor lock-in, a business-driven IT model opens up new choices to help you get the solutions and capabilities you want – regardless of whether you acquire them through your existing vendor, a handful of new vendors, or a combination of the two.

When you take control of your IT decision-making, your company gains the ability to build an IT infrastructure that supports your business needs, maximizes IT ROI with value-added capabilities, and can be adapted as your needs evolve over time.

And, when it comes time to renegotiate service agreements, a business-driven IT model is better equipped to swap out providers if your IT needs change, or if an existing vendor’s solutions are no longer deemed worth the investment.

CREATING AN IT MODEL ALIGNS WITH YOUR BUSINESS GOALS

The future of IT – and in most cases, the future of your industry – can be impossible to predict. That’s why, when projecting the long-term value of your IT solutions and vendor relationships, flexibility and agility are among the most important characteristics.

While today’s business goals might be effectively served by your current IT infrastructure, you’ll likely need different functionality and services to address your future needs. When your IT model is built with this flexibility in mind, you can make necessary changes to ensure your business goals are supported by your IT investments.

Escaping single-vendor lock-in can be extremely complex. Similarly, adapting your IT environment to ever-evolving business needs is often easier said than done. While the challenges of transforming and optimizing IT environments shouldn’t be taken for granted, a trusted migration partner can make these processes much easier.

Origina’s team of experts has extensive experience helping businesses escape vendor lock-in and create flexible, agile IT environments. No matter how challenging your vendor migration project may be, Origina is at your side every step of the way. We’ll help you create a strategic roadmap to manage resources and costs, putting you in back in charge of your current and future IT initiatives. To learn more about the full range of benefits, read our latest white paper: Take Charge of Your IT Roadmap.

And when you’re ready to transform your approach to IT, we’re here for you. Contact us today to learn more.

ABOUT ORIGINA

Origina is a third-party software support and maintenance (TPSM) solution unlike any other. It’s the only TPSM solution that gives IBM® customers 24/7 access to over 600 IBM® product experts with a minimum of 15 years supporting and developing IBM® products.

Origina shifts you from relying on a single point of vendor support to having a team of legacy software experts that implement an extensive system of checks and balances to greatly limit your exposure to vulnerabilities.

We support all versions – supported or not – of over 800 IBM® products and save our customers hundreds of thousands on OEM upgrades they don’t need. Our team works hard to enhance, extend and protect your IBM® products and provide solid advice on how to best migrate business-critical systems.

We’re a team of straight shooters who love to talk software shop and fully support software customers’ freedom of choice. Get in touch if you’d like a free feasibility assessment to help you assess whether third-party support is the best option for your company.