Transform Your IT Department with IT-as-a-Service

The as-a-service model supplies businesses with scalable, consumption-based services to increase speed and agility while driving revenue and reducing costs. As businesses have turned towards Software as a Service (SaaS), Video Conferencing as a Service (VCaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and even Cloud as a Service (CaaS) to lower costs and increase agility, it makes sense that IT as a Service (ITaaS) is now available—and recommended.

Switching to an IT as a Service model (and mindset) means taking the focus off the functional roles of IT and enabling an IT department that is much more agile, better aligned with business goals, and customer-centric. As an operational model, ITaaS delivers to an enterprise only the hardware, software, and staff needed at any given time. ITaaS can be internal or external or a combination of the two. It can be cloud-based or on-site—or a combination of the two. ITaaS should be as flexible in delivery as it is in ability.

Judith Hurwitz says of the benefits of ITaaS, “By transitioning to an IT-as-a-service model, IT organizations are transforming themselves from traditional IT groups to brokers of a variety of public and private cloud services, third-party managed service providers and traditional data center services.”

If that statement alone does not convince you, here are four more reasons why ITaaS should be on every CTO’s radar:

ITaaS Can Be More Effective and Cost-Efficient

As with so much change that has been driven by anything “as a Service” and cloud computing, ITaaS enables streamlining operations and speeding up development. It also lowers cost because the upfront investment is minimal compared to having all hardware, software, and staff in-house. Businesses only use what they need, and the cost of doing so can be projected out. The services can scale if and when needed. Software upgrades and hardware are kept up-to-date. And the business can tap into an IT expertise without paying the high cost of having that expertise on the payroll.

Legacy Business Functions Are Still Used

When using ITaaS, organizations can still use those legacy business functions that are at the core of their business. There is no need to completely walk away from the “old” way of doing IT, or from those legacy systems or functions. Sure, they might be slow and seemingly not able to keep pace with a fast-moving market. Supplemented with ITaaS, however, CIOs are no longer faced with decisions about optimizing outdated equipment as an either/or scenario: Either update the old, or invest in the new.

IT-as-a-Service Can Stabilize the Environment

A third reason to have ITaaS on your radar screen is because it can stabilize your IT environment while also allowing for flexibility in the cloud. As mentioned above, the pricing is stabilized and predictable, and businesses pay only for what they need at any given time. In addition, ITaaS can improve security and lower risk, as well as ensure the hardware and software are up-to-date. You’re able to respond quickly to market changes and demands without putting any of your own infrastructure at risk—or rendering it unusable. Although the word “stabilize” might seem like an odd choice in this context, ITaaS can stabilize what otherwise might be a volatile and chaotic environment if your IT department tried to keep up with all the ever-changing demands placed on it using only internal resources.

ITaaS Enables Customized Cloud Computing and IT

With ITaaS, hybrid cloud and IT can be customized to meet your business needs, and offer an alternative to cloud computing vendors. As John Wellen puts it, “The goal is to transform and optimize enterprise-specific IT operations using self-managed service provider models that leverage cloud technologies more economically than licensed commercial cloud providers.” With ITaaS, organizations can use a mixed IT strategy to benefit from the best of both worlds: components hosted internally and components externally.

Organizations today want IT to add business value, and I mean in a monetary way as well. ITaaS makes this possible. However, it’s not an overnight change. It takes time to transition into working with an ITaaS model, because it is as much a cultural shift as it is a change in the way IT is viewed and the expectations the business units have of the IT department. Businesses can ease the transition and lower the risk with a gradual approach, implementing ITaaS only in higher priority areas first—although that approach inherently has its own risks, as Peter Bendor-Samuel explains in an article for CIO.com.

This post was brought to you by IBM Global Technology Services. For more content like this, visit IT Biz Advisor.

Photo Credit: pinkhypo Flickr via Compfight cc