The transformation trap: Why organizations are trying to change too much, too fast

Organizations often face immense pressure to make changes to their IT infrastructure. Two primary drivers for these changes are the push for innovation and the need for cost-effective solutions due to inflation and slower economic growth. Additionally, changes can be forced upon companies through end-of-life operating systems, outages, and cyber threats.

Companies may also experience rising software vendor prices due to ownership changes, such as the case with VMware, which can leave them needing new solutions to reduce vendor dependency and stay within budget.

However, attempting to implement all these changes simultaneously and quickly can lead to a trap where the changes become harder to manage, and the risk of outages and system failures rises. The main issue with making too many changes at once is visibility. Companies must monitor complex IT estates, including on-prem systems, the cloud, servers, end-user computing, and networks, where constant change and automated security updates occur.

As change happens, there are more interactions between older and newer systems, different operating systems, and various products, increasing the risk of failure.

Configuration drift, for example, can occur when unauthorized changes cause a system to deviate from its intended baseline. Without proper monitoring software, this drift can remain hidden, creating additional risks for each subsequent change – which may result in an outage or cyber incident. The recent suspension of Railway's production account by Google Cloud, owing to the platform's inability to detect a technical dependency on GCP, is a prime example.

Another challenge arises when companies need to modernize their existing applications. The typical buy-or-rebuild dilemma can be expensive and time-consuming, leading to vendor lock-in and making it hard for IT teams to oversee change without additional resources. Packaging and migrating existing applications can help modernize without having to build from scratch.

By packaging an app or VM's existing operating system dependencies, teams can move them into containers and modern desktop infrastructure without rewriting the app. This approach maintains the app's existing behavior while allowing it to work on the latest operating systems and workspaces like AWS.

To escape the transformation trap, organizations must shift their mindset. This involves recognizing that change is constant and can be managed through continuous visibility and automation. Configuration monitoring software, drift detection tools, and automated packaging and delivery of apps can help teams gain ongoing visibility across their estate and detect unauthorized changes before they lead to failure.

This approach enables more targeted, impactful, and safer change, ultimately helping companies navigate the transformation process more efficiently.