Five ways to upgrade your IT strategy

The adage of ‘move fast and break things’ belongs to all technology. Innovate and adopt, or risk being left behind.
19 April 2019

Don’t leave your IT department in the past. Source: Shutterstock

Innovations in technology mean business, across every industry, moves faster than it ever has done before.

As such, businesses that lead with the adoption of emerging technology, despite the risk of the unknown, can often be sector leaders, disruptors even. After all, fortune favors the brave.

From robotic process automation (RPA), analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) businesses not investing or, at least exploring new technology risk being left behind.

With that in mind, here are five areas businesses should upgrade if they haven’t already.

#1 | Allow users to rule the tech

Technology has one grand purpose — to make our lives easier. It is meant to solve problems and do what humans cannot, so that time and effort spent can be repurposed for greater things.

Before, IT professionals decided what software will be used and for what purposes. Now, businesses are constantly assessing how digital solutions can impact operations instead.

#2 | Let there be data

On top of the occasional reporting, IT can govern access rights and manage the quality of data for a business. With automation in place, operations can run with little to no IT oversight.

Once a system is designed to suit the need of its purpose, data will be collected, stored, shared, and revoked accordingly. How the data is used will become the crux of all business decisions.

#3 | Fake it ‘til you make it

Talks about AI have been around since the 1960s, but the technology only came into mass use in the last decade. This is a result of society becoming more welcoming towards innovations.

Many IT projects used to get shelved because are deemed unready for release. Though, the new-age culture is more willing to take risks and trial new ideas for the greater good.

#4 | Trust no one

In the past, there were clear perimeters that can protect businesses from digital threats by containing them. Now, everyone can be exposed to breaches one way or another.

With the rise of trends like cloud services and IoT, IT professionals need to up the ante on security know-hows and measures. In essence, trust no one.

#5 | Keep options open

Previously, CIOs would commit to a single vendor as long as they could deliver. Now, with technology breakthroughs happening daily around the world, it’s better to keep options open.

Innovations are stimulating more business use of technology. The popularity of certain technologies also makes it more affordable for businesses to deploy. Hence why vendor contracts should be kept flexible.

Technology is going to continue to move fast and break things. So, CIOs should take heed of these five areas if they want to strengthen their business plans.

After all, innovation requires us to constantly explore new grounds and think the unthinkable to discover the best solutions. In technology we trust.

This article previously appeared on TechWireAsia.