By Mr. Bharat Bedi, Vice President- Global SI & APJ Business, SolarWinds
In India’s data-driven sectors, technology mandates often come directly from the C-suite level. Leadership teams are increasingly driving organizations to adopt the latest technologies–generative AI, cloud infrastructure, or remote work models. This surge is reflected in the country’s IT spending, which is projected to surpass $160 billion in 2025, and now accounts for 7.5% of India’s GDP.
In the subsequent rush to please the C-suite, while keeping up with the global technology trends and government-led initiatives, organizations often skip steps to effective IT modernization. Teams may rush to buy the latest technology without fully aligning these initiatives with business goals. This can result in tech debt or lead to dissatisfied middle managers who turn to shadow IT for effective solutions. Successful IT modernization occurs at the intersection of data that informs the efforts and the people that execute them.
Challenges of siloed IT organizations
Enterprises are increasingly recognizing the pitfalls of IT organizations working in silos. In siloed organizations, individual teams don’t have much visibility into their organizations’ day-to-day business. Lack of integration leads to poor alignment with business objectives like cost optimization or modernization, or cloud migration.
The goal of each modernization effort should be to drive business success. This idea of team connectivity is especially important for database administrators, since corporate databases have a lifespan measured in decades. For modernization to be effective, IT teams need to leverage organizational data relevant to current business goals. Without this alignment, they risk investing in the wrong technology. IT modernization is a team effort in which all parties have visibility into each department’s goals and how any new technology maps back to those goals.
Upskilling for IT modernization
A major challenge for Indian IT modernization is the severe shortage of advanced digital skills, with about 84% of organizations facing talent scarcity. As AI, cloud computing, and cybersecurity become foundational to IT strategy, enterprises are prioritizing upskilling initiatives to close this gap This push is fueled by rapid adoption of technology: by 2025, 75% of Indian enterprises expect to integrate AI, and 62% are planning hybrid cloud strategies, compelling them to significantly boost training efforts.
Having a well-informed and educated team becomes even more important after modernization efforts are underway. As the team analyzes the performance of the new technology, they must understand which metrics to look for and compare them to previously established benchmarks to gauge success.
Understanding the end-to-end workings of IT systems
One of the most important steps to IT modernization is arming IT teams with a comprehensive view of the current IT infrastructure. In many situations, an ideal starting point is to ensure that any documentation, ER diagrams, and architectural diagrams are collected into a single repository and reviewed. Once that foundation is set, IT teams can use an observability solution that connects with every part of the company’s infrastructure (both cloud-based and on-premise assets), giving each team a complete picture of how everything works together.
Security remains a top priority, especially with the rise of generative AI. As CIOs begin allocating budgets for GenAI beyond pilot projects, there is a growing emphasis on limiting the use of certain AI tools to prevent exposure of sensitive company data to external large language models (LLMs). This heightened vigilance is prompting many organizations to shift critical assets from public cloud to private cloud or on-premises environments for greater control and compliance
Establishing a culture ready for modernization
With India’s digital economy projected to reach $1 trillion by 2030, the stakes for digital transformation have never been higher. In this rapidly evolving landscape, companies that prioritize robust data management and invest in people across both technical and non-technical roles are building the strongest foundations for modernization.
Ultimately, successful IT modernization is about breaking down silos to utilize the full potential of both data and people. By building a collaborative culture that leverages data and continuously invests in its workforce’s capabilities, IT leaders can build a future-proof organization, ready to safely and securely execute any C-suite mandate and drive lasting business success.
Covered By: NCN MAGAZINE / SolarWinds
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