With the start of the new year comes the kickoff of new initiatives and business goals, but also internal assessments to determine the feasibility of those new objectives. Companies are stepping back to get a sense of the “bigger picture,” identifying where there might be gaps, and where they may need to invest. In this article, Fresche + Abacus help cover some key essentials of your organization will want to have in its 2022 IBM i IT plan, that will ensure your team stays on target.
The Role of Cloud in Modernization Strategy
2022 will continue the trend of an increasingly connected economy powered by cloud. As more businesses are realizing how integral modernization is becoming to their cloud journey, third-party service providers are playing a bigger part in their digital transformation plans. It’s why more IT decision makers are hiring service providers to enhance their strategic capabilities and advise on key technology initiatives. They need a partner that can move or adapt their increasingly complex and mission-critical applications to the cloud, while still being sensitive to their primary business drivers for modernization. Fresche + Abacus are helping companies with flexible strategies for migrating applications to the cloud, building a new generation of digital platforms for customer facing systems, and adding new digital capabilities to existing products and services.
Closing the IBM i Skill Gap
In addition to cloud related modernization, we help organizations shore up any skill gaps that might exist in their infrastructure management. In the cloud or on premise, some of the top concerns and impacts we address with customers include:
- Security – Ensuring your IT environments are secure and following best practices is perhaps the most important due to the increasing number of ransomware attacks we’ve seen the past year.
- HA/DR – Developing and implementing High Availability/Disaster Recovery solutions for customers reduces risk and gives them the confidence that business can return to normal in the event of a man-made (ransomware attack) or natural (flood, fire, etc.) disaster.
- Modernizing Applications – Fresche specializes in the development and transformation of IBM i applications, with services covering IT strategy and planning, GUI, web and mobile, code and database transformation.
- Reducing IT spend – By streamlining processes, guiding customers to purchase scalable hardware infrastructure, and bundling services, we work with IT decision makers to maximize dollars for performance.
Vision + Strategy = Roadmap
Aligning a modernization strategy with a clear business vision is key in outlining your organization’s 2022 IBM i IT plan. What problems are we solving? What does the business get out of it that it doesn’t have today? How will we know if we are successful? Answering these questions can help determine which business priorities you should be targeting, what resources can go towards implementation of the plan, and what kind of milestones you can work towards.
Whether it’s growing revenue, improving customer experience, or responding more quickly to changes in market, Fresche + Abacus can help organizations achieve these business priorities with strategic digital transformation and modernization plans. If you have any questions about how we can assist with the services mentioned above, contact us today. And for more information about other IBM i concerns and impacts your organization should consider when building its 2022 IBM i IT Plan, please check out our recent webinar with Forrester. Register here to view a free, on-demand recording.