Over the last few years, businesses have been facing unprecedented strides in building a resilient IT culture. Rapid digitization has influenced every aspect of our economy and society, and it is crucial that this digital environment in which we operate is resilient against disruptions and cyber-attacks.
- Gartner predicts that by 2025, 70% of CEO’s will enforce a culture of organizational resilience in order to withstand concurrent threats from cybercrime.
- Outages are now costing organizations more, with 60% of them resulting in expenses over $100,000, an increase from 39% in 2019. Furthermore, 15% of outages result in costs exceeding $1 million, up from 11% in the previous year. – Uptime Institute’s 2022 Outage Analysis Report
- In a McKinsey 2022 Global Survey, around two-thirds of responding businesses indicated that resilience plays a crucial role in their organization’s overall strategy, with digital, technology, finance, and operations being the key areas of focus for enhancing resilience.
The creation of a resilient IT culture is a gradual journey, not a quick fix. It starts with CIOs identifying the challenges that are hindering progress and assessing where they can contribute to building resilience in their teams and systems. The saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” applies here.The Journey Towards a Resilient IT Culture…
Here are the 11 essential elements to strengthen digital resilience in your organization:
1. IT Infrastructure Modernization
In the digital age, modernizing your IT infrastructure is critical for resilience. This involves incorporating the latest technologies, such as hybrid cloud data center management and virtualization, to enhance speed, flexibility, and scalability. By modernizing your infrastructure, you can ensure that your systems can keep pace with changing business requirements and reduce the risk of failures and outages.
2. Robust Cyber Security & Risk Mitigation
Cyber threats are a reality in today’s interconnected world, and IT resilience requires a strong focus on cyber security services and risk management. Implementing multi-layered security measures, such as firewalls, encryption, and threat detection systems can help protect against cyber-attacks and data breaches. In addition, regular risk assessments and incident response planning can help your organization quickly respond and recover from any security incidents.
3. Business-centric Roadmap with 360-degree Governance
A resilient IT strategy requires alignment with the overall business strategy and objectives. A business-centric roadmap with 360-degree governance ensures that all IT initiatives are aligned with the organization’s goals. Everyone is working towards the same outcomes. By having a clear and comprehensive governance framework, you can ensure that your IT systems support the business, rather than being a hindrance.
4. 100% Visibility Across Networks & Endpoints
To ensure IT resilience, you need complete visibility into your networks and endpoints. This includes monitoring systems, applications, and devices in real-time to detect and respond to potential issues before they become problems. By having complete visibility, you can quickly identify and resolve any issues. You can avoid disruptions that may impact the performance and availability of your IT systems.
5. Adherence to Regulatory Compliance
IT resilience requires compliance with relevant industry regulations and standards. This includes ensuring that your systems are secure, that data is protected, and that you have proper procedures in place for data management and privacy. By adhering to regulatory compliance, you can avoid penalties and fines, and protect your organization’s reputation.
6. Process Automation
Automating routine IT processes can help improve the efficiency and reliability of your IT systems. This includes automating tasks such as software updates, backups, and security checks. By automating processes, you can reduce the risk of human error, increase efficiency, and improve the overall resilience of your IT systems.
7. Industry Best Practices
This includes adopting frameworks and standards, such as ITIL and COBIT. These frameworks ensure that your IT systems are robust and secure. By following industry best practices, you can improve the quality and reliability of your IT systems and ensure that they meet the evolving needs of your business.
8. 24/7 End User Support
To ensure IT resilience, you need to provide end-user support around the clock. This includes providing digital workplace support for IT, HR, Field, Finance, Facilities, etc. to help end users effectively leverage your IT systems. By providing 24/7 support, you can minimize downtime, improve productivity, and enhance the employee experience.
9. Experience Level Agreements (XLA’s over SLA’s)
IT resilience requires setting and meeting performance expectations with your customers and stakeholders. Experience Level Agreements (XLA’s) focus on the end-user experience, rather than just the availability of systems. By setting XLA’s, you can ensure that your IT systems meet the needs of the business and its users, and that performance expectations are being met. XLA’s also help in overcoming the watermelon effect in IT Outsourcing.
10. Employee Experience
A highly engaged workforce is key to a resilient IT culture. This includes providing the necessary self-service tools and resources to enable employees to do their jobs effectively. Businesses can foster a collaborative and supportive work environment. By focusing on the employee experience, you can improve engagement, digital dexterity, and productivity. This leads to increased morale, and reduced turnover.
11. Cost Optimization
IT resilience doesn’t have to come at a high cost. By implementing cost optimization strategies, companies can reduce costs while still maintaining their level of IT resilience. This can include reducing hardware costs through virtualization, optimizing cloud expenses, and streamlining processes using automation. Additionally, by incorporating an IT outsourcing strategy into the organization’s overall business resilience plan, the company can ensure that its measures are sustainable in the long term.
Final Words
Organizations that take the necessary steps to ready their business for the future will be able to establish the long-lasting resilience. This is necessary to endure even the most drastic disruptions. However, one of the common IT resilience challenges faced by organizations undergoing a transformation is failing to provide the necessary resources, tools, and staff to support the process.
This can result in teams struggling to cope with the increased workload and responsibilities. A trusted IT Managed Service provider can help you navigate the challenges, respond better to new opportunities, adapt to changing customer needs, and prepare for the future. Build IT Resilience with Progressive Infotech. Get Started Now!