Building Your IT Dream Team Requires Creative Thinking and Simplicity

A new era of digital transformation is taking shape, and, more than ever before, it’s defined by people. “People” doesn’t just mean customers; it includes employees, whom many IT leaders struggle to find. This skills gap is causing some to struggle with key transformation initiatives, amidst limited budgets and resources. (And in some cases, dated legacy foundations.)

Transformation can keep the goalposts moving for IT, but there’s a winning play: creating an IT dream team.

The Widening Transformation Talent Gap

A survey Pure Storage® conducted with Bredin Research asked IT leaders what success with digital transformation meant to them, and a familiar drumline sounded: cloud, adoption of new tech, process automation, CI/CD pipelines, and launching experiential platforms. 

These plans widen the talent gap between the skills they have and the skills they need, with many identifying “the lack of personnel with the right expertise” as a top issue impeding current digital transformation progress.

“Our expertise and equipment are lagging behind, and this creates a barrier to digital transformation.” –2021 Bredin IT Survey respondent in response to the question, “Do you have a specific obstacle impeding digital transformation and revenue growth?”

Take the cloud, for example. It’s been on everyone’s radar for a while, but still only comprises on average 5%-15% of IT spend. Why? Because skills required to run workloads on premises vary quite a bit from those required to run cloud-native workloads. Cloud adoption is not just a matter of moving locations of workloads; it’s also having the people to manage them. 

Organizations are scrambling to fill open roles. Staffing critical IT positions can take weeks or longer. And retaining those in-demand professionals is another challenge, especially when they’re brought in to fix issues related to legacy tech and asked to shoulder a heavy burden of manual (and unfulfilling) work.

“The company’s biggest problem is that it loses talent too quickly and takes too long to train professionals.” –2021 Bredin IT Survey respondent in response to the question, “Do you have a specific obstacle impeding digital transformation and revenue growth?”

Legacy Tech Compounds Transformation Frustration

Legacy issues are a drag on transformation and teams. Thirty-six percent of respondents said their organization is struggling to integrate new technology with existing IT investments—up 12% from our 2020 survey. It’s a square peg, round hole issue—next-gen tech is the goal, but legacy infrastructures can’t scale or adapt.

For people, wrangling legacy tech is the opposite of user-friendly. And in DX, user-friendly is the goal.

To help the business overcome hurdles, one thing is clear: Change management needs to change, and IT leaders need to focus on people and simplicity. 

The Play: Create IT Dream Teams with Next-Gen Tech and Talent

We’re calling it a modern “IT dream team”— part people, part people-friendly technology, and likely a different lineup than the one they have now. This could look like process automation and as-a-service procurement or hiring specialists and contract talent—all things respondents listed as ways to leap hurdles.

Let’s talk about the people component of the IT dream team first:

• 72% of respondents said their organization intends to use training or reskilling to address changing personnel needs and ensure their team can remain effective. 
• 59% said they will restructure their teams, while relying on outside resources and reducing headcount were other top strategies cited.

In our guide, Digital Transformation for Humans, we cover who these specialists are and what skills they bring to the table.

Then, we dive into the new tech—top of the stack investments that define outward-facing transformation. We’ll share what IT leaders are implementing and investing in with the most success. We heard most organizations say a move to next-generation IT infrastructure, including modern storage, as the key to helping them achieve desired business outcomes and breakthroughs. Because simplicity has to happen at the bottom of the stack, too.

“Focus innovation from within, map out new ideas, and build on the fresh mindsets.” –2021 Bredin IT Survey respondent in response to the question, “If you had more time for innovation, where would you focus?”

The guide will explain how to uncomplicate the complicated for IT teams, moving away from the outdated model of “forcing new to work with old,” which contradicts the whole idea of digital transformation. You’ll learn how to enable change and innovation without a heavy lift from IT and jump-start stalled transformation with a software-defined back end that includes as-a-service models. 

Remember: It’s about People, Not Products

As you move toward the new era of human-centric transformation, move slowly and with care. Otherwise, you risk losing the people you need today, and possibly, struggling even more to develop and attract the talent you need for tomorrow.

The heart of IT dream teams is people—something Pure Storage knows well. Our products and platforms are next-gen technology and human-centric by design. Pure gives power to the people—removing painful configuration, administration, management and maintenance, and staying modern and future-fit, always. 

To see more results from the 2021 Bredin IT Survey and learn how to inspire innovation with simple, modern technologies like those from Pure, download our guide, Digital Transformation for Humans.