Organizations Need a New Way to Manage Technology — Welcome the Solutions Integrator
Meet the IT partner helping organizations address technical debt and achieve ROI
By Stan Lequin, president, Insight solutions
This article originally appears in Insight’s Tech Journal, helping IT executives, business leaders and owners understand the latest developments in the modern workplace, from innovative applications and the cloud and edge infrastructure to securely gain new insights about the business through efficient data management and artificial intelligence. Read more at insight.com/techjournal.
Technology can inspire a childlike eagerness. Like a new set of LEGOs full of possibilities, it’s easy to imagine the potential of what companies of all kinds can build.
But then, seeing all of the pieces scattered across the floor can lead to hesitation. All of the choices they need to make might contribute to decision paralysis. Where do you begin? How will these building blocks integrate with others? What’s the best architecture to ensure it’s secure? Do you actually have the skills to assemble it all, or was this project too ambitious? Are you within budget and able to demonstrate immediate ROI to validate what you’re doing to the business?
This is a significant concern in the real world that can turn the fun of creating and putting the right pieces together into headaches. But with technologies relating to AI, cloud computing and storage, cybersecurity, CRM and more, this is where the Solutions Integrator steps in. A single partner with a commitment to alleviating the growing pains organizations experience when adopting new technologies.
But wait, what is a Solutions Integrator?
A Solutions Integrator is an IT partner that serves as a steadfast, central point of execution and guidance. Solutions Integrators blend capabilities, making them ideal for long-term, meaningful connections.
Partnering with a Solutions Integrator means organizations have a trusted advisor as well as a central provider for everything — from consultation and design to procurement, all the way through execution, support and managed services. And because of the singular vantage point, there’s greater alignment of objectives and better understanding of dependencies across different organizational domains.
To put it simply, a Solutions Integrator is the LEGO master builder of an organization’s technology ecosystem. And that level of mastery, experience and depth is an uncommon — and powerful — combination.
The importance of addressing technical debt
Besides perhaps startups, an organization likely has a technological foundation that’s built upon years (if not decades) of infrastructure, data, platforms, software and more. And because technology changes fast, that organization might very well be among the 46% of organizations weighed down by technical debt, according to the 2023 Insight Intelligent Technology™ Report (ITR), an IDC InfoBrief.
In short, technical debt is the measure of the cost of reworking a technological solution caused by organizations choosing an easy, yet limited, technological solution in the past. This is a particularly prevalent issue among established players across markets. As they go through growth or acquisitions, technological infrastructure becomes more complex and less efficient.
They make short-term decisions to move fast and put off things that need fixing, but this becomes a hinderance in the future as they try to shoehorn digital transformation. Getting out of technical debt doesn’t happen overnight — nor does it require a full rip and replace. The key to moving forward is a balance of understanding where an organization has been — having a grasp on where the technology debt exists and why past technology investments were made — as well as understanding within those investments how and who used that data.
But few IT partners have that intimate knowledge of a client’s historical technology roadmap. This is where the longstanding partnership of the Solutions Integrator adds significant value.
Why a new way of managing IT is necessary
Whether an organization needs to optimize and overcome technical debt to save money, or modernize to accelerate innovation, many are saying the same thing: they need help.
In our ITR findings, 61% said they expected to see returns on investment through digital business capabilities by 2024. Yet by then, only 23% believe they will realize digital at scale; that is, using new technologies and business models to purposefully change what they do. This is a significant discrepancy between expectation and reality.
Navigating the technology ecosystem to find the right IT partner for your business can be overwhelming. There’s a range of IT partners to choose from, including value added resellers (VAR), managed services providers (MSP) and IT consultants, to name a few. All these categories have value and purpose, but they also have limitations — especially when focused on the long game.
On the other hand, Solutions Integrators represent the latest evolution in IT partnership, offering the benefits of the arrangements outlined above without many of the shortfalls.
We work alongside organizations to unlock data insights to make better business decisions, create new revenue streams, enhance customer or employee experiences and more. From the technology procurement side all the way through the innovation side, we’re the partner that executes and can connect all those pieces to accelerate our client’s digital journeys and maximize the value of their technology like never before.
Stan Lequin leads the solutions practice at Insight Enterprises, a Fortune 500 Solutions Integrator helping organizations accelerate transformation by unlocking the power of people and technology. Stan’s team of 5,700 deep technical experts — engineers, architects and software developers — architect, build and manage solutions for complex IT environments to simplify modern business for clients around the globe. Learn more from Stan.
