A recent study by McKinsey estimates that, on average, companies accelerated their digital transformation initiatives by as much as four years during 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The accelerated IT ambition was needed as organizations transitioned to home-office environments in unprecedented numbers. Unfortunately, these transformation initiatives arrived on the heels of a reeling 10-year IT run of never catching its breath from the economic hardship of the 2008 recession that created skeleton crews across all corporate departments. In an era of doing more IT with less IT help, in 2020 we asked IT to do even more and this time, corporate survival was at stake.
More than 1,000 business and IT experts cited barriers to providing the infrastructure needed
According to a recent Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey, more than 1,000 business and IT experts cited barriers to providing the infrastructure needed to facilitate the new work-from-home paradigm.
Business leaders cited the following 3 barriers:
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Security or regulatory concerns
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Lack of access to the right technical talent
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Inadequate collaboration between the IT function and business units
IT leaders cited the following 3 barriers:
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Security or regulatory concerns
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Inaction due to legacy IT systems
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Lack of budget and investment
What is clear is that business and IT leaders are struggling to provide employees with the seamless home/work experience they once enjoyed during pre-pandemic times, and the “why” varies depending on who you ask. Caught in the middle are the resources these digitizing initiatives were supposed to help in the first place, front-line employees serving valuable customers.
Making matters worse, 64% of IT respondents to the EIU survey stated that they are getting more requests for this transformational work than there is budget for. The digital modernization revolution response to Covid-19 has plenty of ask, just not enough budget to deliver.
Success precedents
Taking on more IT projects with fewer qualified people and budget is not new to CIOs. But the pressures and accompanying stress to deliver during a pandemic for corporate survival (and personal livelihood) are unprecedented. Organizations must find sure hits for solutions that contribute to the cause and these solutions must deliver at as low a total cost of ownership (TCO) as possible. A CIO must be able to go to his/her CxO counterparts on the business side of their organization with “success precedents.”
SysperTec has such a success precedent in its latest use case about a large financial asset management client who was adding modernization technology to their application stack. AG2R, based in Paris, sought to simplify its remote access to the mainframe and engaged with SysperTec to deploy its TN3270 emulator product Virtel Web Access.
After deploying the emulator, AG2R quickly discovered they could also eliminate their costly Session Manager without adding any additional software licenses to their Web Access purchase.
It is worth noting that many times Session Managers are contractually bundled with other software products. Having both its emulator and Session Manager bundled in a common web browser – users can choose any web browser! – AG2R has simplified end-user experience and its improved security. And, because it is browser-based, Virtel Web Access simplified support for AG2R. The AG2R helpdesk team – with minimal mainframe experience – only needs to check internet status for any issue that arises with Virtel.
The mainframe team now gets control back on mainframe access, and as we know, the mainframe is the most reliable asset in your IT stack. If the internet is up, Virtel Web Access is on and available to your team.
For AG2R, the CIO was able to show his business counterparts that the cost savings in licenses and TCO preceded the need to create budget for the software investment. The reduction in licenses coupled with simplified support options for the mainframe team made Virtel Web Access and easy purchase for approval from the business leaders at AG2R.
Learn more about SysperTec’s AG2R success story by downloading the use case here.
To learn more about the Virtel Web Suite of products visit https://virtelweb.com.
Topics: Mainframe, security, TN3270, terminal emulator