A business’s ability to succeed in capturing new opportunities depends directly on how efficiently and effectively it leverages its data and technology to improve operations and customer engagement. In a recent ESG research study, nearly every IT organization surveyed (99%) said they are in some phase of digital transformation.1 ESG research shows that businesses seeking to transform themselves digitally do so because they want to become more efficient (reported by 52% of respondents), deliver a better customer experience (cited by 47%), and/or develop new datacentric products and services (41%).1 To ensure the success of these digital initiatives, however, IT organizations must often accelerate their application and infrastructure modernization efforts.

However, accelerating IT initiatives is difficult to do in an era plagued by increasingly complex and diverse technologies, plus mounting skills shortages, as technology demands pull expert resources away from infrastructure toward other IT fields such as application development and data science. Other common challenges today include under/over provisioning-related worries, CapEx increases, painful technology refresh cycles, unpredictable data growth, frequently changing business requirements, and cloud confusion/complexity.