Fifteen years ago, you’d show up for your first day of work, the HR representative would give you a tour of the office, introduce you to key personnel and then show you to your desk. There they would provide your ID card and badge then instruct you to call or visit IT to get your username and password so you could access the company systems and whatnot. Fast forward five more years, not much changed. Five more years? Not a lot of differences. Fast forward to today and there still aren’t many differences – but a change is in the wind.

Before you stop reading, because you think the premise of the article is ridiculous; technology won’t ever become irrelevant. In fact, it will become more important as we continue to harness it for work and pleasure further. Instead, that IT department of technology-tyrants that rule over the tools and applications that we so desperately depend on will find themselves going the way of the dodo bird.

An amazing shift began over a decade ago as system began shifting to the cloud. As the cloud became more accepted and accessible, companies began to utilize it in creative, scalable ways that didn’t exist in the previous decade and it has bred the era of cloud services. We all know them; Spotify, DropBox, Slack, and Zoom – just to name a few – are great examples of systems that we’ve all learned to integrate into our work and personal lives. Further, twenty years ago these examples only existed as enormous CD collections, or complicated IT file servers, or were only accessible as expensive video conferencing rooms. Now, for pennies on the dollar each month, everyone has access to the same, incredible solutions with the click of a button. What’s more, the user has access to these tools. Simply go online, register for the product, put in your credit card, and you’re off to the races. Nowhere in there did anyone have to call the IT overlords to configure a server, manage a deployment, or collect quotes for a support contract.

Now, I want to be clear on something; oversight, accountability, and expertise are very important to maintaining a healthy organization and it’s systems, but the ability to provide a valuable perspective with regards to security, budget, and simplicity are a completely different skillset than traditional systems administration. That reality is the basis for the claim of irrelevancy.

Well, I’m an organizational leader, how do I cut cost, increase my technology adoption rate, and simplify my IT practices while moving towards this bright future, you say? That’s a great question. This will take a shift in thinking. This shift will involve the realization that technology should drive decisions, revenue, and customer satisfaction, rather than simply being a cost-center that is guided by a traditional, systems administration way of thinking. You’ll need to start actively seeking ways to push your technology and systems to integrator-based platforms rather than continuing to operate the big-black-box-of-despair that lives in your server closest. You’ll need to shift the cultural thinking within the organization to something where everyone is responsible for technology that can provide efficiencies rather than expecting a single person or department to guide the technology strategy on the organization’s behalf. This won’t be easy. This will take time. But change is coming inevitably, and wouldn’t you rather be ahead of the curve?

If this is something that you are already doing within your organization, fantastic! If this is something you believe your organization is ready to make a shift to, go for it, dive in. But if this is something your organization doesn’t know where to start, we at Davinci Technology Solutions are prepared and eager to help you begin this transformation and shift into the technology workspace of tomorrow.