Trailblazers automate IT services extensively

Recent CIO Magazine research commissioned by Atos uncovers four characteristics shared by IT organizations that are considered trailblazers. This blog series goes into each of the four trailblazer characteristics described in the research:

1. They embrace the cloud and are cloud secure
2. They use service management best practices
3. They automate IT services
4. They provide greater development agility

Think longer-term and end-to-end

The CIO Magazine research shows that IT trailblazers make extensive use of orchestration and automa­tion for provisioning applications to the business. In reality, the use of automation among these firms goes beyond provisioning. Trailblazers tackle automation from an end-to-end perspective.

Yes, they automate provisioning. They also think about day-two operations and how to automate the entire lifecycle and management of their business services. That’s huge!  It’s a key differentiator. Trailblazers are thinking about the automation of business services — the apps, security and infrastructure together. Others are thinking about the problem in terms of just provisioning an Amazon EC2 instance, for example, and still going about applications, security and other facets of provisioning the way they’ve always done them.

The trinity: people-process-technology

What’s preventing them from automating more fully? Nothing other than sitting down and thinking about “How do I transform my processes and people and technology to align to that model?” It’s an evolutionary thing. Part of it is the mindset within the trailblazers to think about the next 18-24 months strategically. The others are trapped responding to immediate needs around cost containment or other pressing issues.

If you’re stuck in the here and now, step back and look at the bigger picture of how to execute against a strategic vision in tactical steps. Then develop and end-to-end roadmap, which the trailblazers have already done.

Disrupt the disrupters

Everyone has to fight fires from time to time. Trailblazers, when the market turns down, still have the ability to invest because they’ve been executing that way for a while. And they’re not typically being disrupted. They’re the disrupters. The disrupted now have two problems: Deal with the trailblazers’ disruption to their business (i.e., how to drive new revenue, contain costs, etc.) and focus on the strategic things they need to do to become trailblazers.

It’s an interesting problem to solve. But it’s possible! We’ve seen Monsanto make that change. Texas DIR and Phillips have done it, too. Outside of Atos clients, Becton, Dickinson and Company is going through a huge transformation around using data to enable and drive patient outcomes, and IoT and everything else. They started in 1897, and now they’re on the forefront of healthcare IT. Siemens, GE, they’re all out there driving what they have to do today to achieve their strategic vision for the future.