How to Take Control of a Complex and Evolving IT Estate

Chaos and order

The evolution of IT has been a double-edged sword for business. Industry leaders gathered  at The Studio, HotTopics’ flagship event for the technology c-suite hosted at Abbey Road Studios, to navigate the challenges of the digital age, as their evolving IT estate becomes critical.

Technology is now integral to almost every organisation of any sector, with CIOs and CTOs holding influential roles on company boards. On the other hand, the adoption of public cloud, SaaS applications and now AI has increased customisation and complexity for IT and security teams, who are already stretched and perhaps fast losing control and visibility over their environments.

In this panel, C-suite executives discuss the critical challenges facing today's IT leaders, exploring strategies to navigate increasingly complex IT environments in growing organisations, the need for stability, scalability and security, and how leading CIOs, CTOs and CISOs can unpick complexity and streamline IT operations to drive business innovation. 

With Bridgid Nzekwu moderating, the panellists included:

• Alonso Bustamante, Senior Director, Special Projects, Cloudflare
• Nicola Wadham, Vice President Technology and Systems, Accord Healthcare
• Kshitij Kumar, Chief Data Officer, Haleon
• Sanjay Patel, Former Group CIO, Tate & Lyle 

How to take control of a complex and evolving IT estate

• Evolving IT estate: vendor sprawl and consolidation
• Cultural and IT complexities
• Connectivity and AI in an evolving IT estate
• Technology adoption and IT complexity

Evolving IT estate: vendor sprawl and consolidation

Alonso Bustamante, Senior Director of Special Projects at Cloudflare, highlighted the pervasive issue of vendor sprawl: “It grows, it gets increasingly complex and these things don't necessarily connect to each other in the best ways.”

He believes that as organisations adopt a plethora of SaaS applications, cloud deployments and databases, the IT stack becomes more fragmented and difficult to manage. This vendor sprawl not only complicates the IT landscape but also drives up costs and reduces efficiency.

"Platform consolidation is something that I hear over and over," Alonso noted. "A swing of the pendulum from best-of-breed point solutions to how can I cobble together more and more solutions under the same vendor to reduce complexity and to increase efficiency."

Another issue stemming from vendor consolidation includes the erosion of core IT disciplines. “When was the last time anybody listened to a fascinating conversation about core processes in the IT function that actually did serve to control this?” 

Nicola Wadham, Vice President Technology and Systems at Accord Healthcare, argued that in the rush to adopt new technologies, fundamental practices like configuration management, ITIL processes and change management often lose their prominence. 

“My solution to the problem is to bring them forward and resurrect some of these skills to get after this complicated landscape… if you’ve got really good control processes then it’s a lot easier to manage.”

Cultural and IT complexities

The cultural aspects of IT management were brought to light by Haleon’s Chief Data Officer, Kshitij Kumar. “The question is, how do you actually get everybody working together to solve that problem?’

He emphasised that the biggest challenge does not merely revolve around technology, but also culture—how different teams within an organisation can work together effectively to achieve the company’s goals.

Sanjay Patel, former Group CIO, Tate & Lyle, with a background in engineering and decades of experience in large global organisations, offered practical advice on handling IT complexity. He draws an analogy to moving houses: each move accumulates more items, requiring prioritisation and occasional decluttering.

Complexity is inevitable in Sanjay’s view. “We're here to run businesses and businesses We often aren't great at prioritising, which is why complexity creeps in. As leaders, I think it's our job to help prioritise and stay focused on the things that matter most.”

Connectivity and AI in an evolving IT estate

As organisations strive to balance security, performance, stability and scalability, Alonso introduced the concept of a connectivity cloud to the panel. This approach can provide a unified platform for managing disparate IT components, enhancing visibility and optimising security.

“The benefit of connecting everything to a single network and single cloud can give you strong visibility over that and strong ability to optimise security, layered security, layered connectivity and course visibility into what's going on,” Alonso explained. 

When asked what emerging technologies may be coming into play in the ever-evolving IT landscape, Kshitij said, “The unknown unknowns are the interesting part.”

He discussed the potential of AI and other emerging technologies in transforming IT management. He shared a personal anecdote about his son's startup, utilising AI tools like GPT-4 to develop sophisticated products without knowing how to code.

As these technologies enter the corporate environment, Kshitij argued that they can revolutionise how we manage and optimise IT systems. “Why can't I use AI to really tell me across these hyperscalers how I should be building my next thing?” 

Technology adoption and IT complexity

Nicola argued that it is crucial to understand and mitigate the associated risks of technology adoption.

“Youngsters come in and they're digital natives, they know how to do this they go forward…the challenge is really you've got ‘usage of’ great, but you must keep the muscle of solutions the engineering solutions because all the AI is learning off what's already there.”

Alonso concluded with a call for a culture of transparency within IT organisations. He stressed the importance of open communication about the tools and technologies being used to ensure security and compliance.

“I think it is incredibly important for all of us in this room, as IT practitioners, security practitioners, as technology professionals, to establish a culture of transparency with our teams… to discuss what tools are being used rather than trying to pretend they're not there.”

This roundtable was made in partnership with Cloudflare.