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Achieving Your IT Fitness Goals: The Power of the Personal Touch

It’s true that we’re living in an age of digital transformation, artificial intelligence, and significant automation, but it’s fair to say that in most areas of our lives where technology plays a role, it augments and enhances the experience – but that experience is still better when a human is involved!

In IT support services, the human element often makes all the difference. We hear repeatedly from customers that the personalized care they get from their HPE Support Team is what really separates their experience, in this case, HPE Datacenter Care.  With all the automation, AI and technology we use to deliver support, I was interested to read how Andrew Mitchell, one of our Account Support Managers (ASMs), described it in a recent blog: “At one company I work with, they call me ‘The Doctor’. When they have an issue, they just send me the information so I can diagnose it and bring in the right expert or team to solve it. It’s like: “‘OK, time to call in Dr. Drew!’”

IT fitness: now it’s personal

From a proactive point of view (which Andrew also describes in his post), it’s like having a personal trainer, versus the ‘do it yourself’ approach at the local gym. Have you ever had the experience of joining the gym, fully intending to work out regularly, and then finding you don’t follow through? At my age it’s important to work on added strength and agility, so I joined a gym close to my house with all the machines and fitness options you can imagine. It’s a very nice facility with all sorts of machines and technology, and cost effective too, so success was sure to follow! But somehow, after an enthusiastic start, my busy work and family schedule always seemed to provide good excuses to not go!

A friend of mine suggested working with a personal trainer. It was a step up from my basic DIY plan, but the difference in the experience and results was like night and day. The first thing he did was discuss my goals and objectives and how we should measure progress. We talked about risk of injury, nutrition, recovery time and much more; plus, he kept a close eye on me as I eased into the program. And, of course, the sessions are scheduled – I do one or two a week – so you develop that much-needed consistency and motivation to execute the agreed plan. I’ve been working with him for eight months or so now, and I’m seeing great results. We agreed some basic measures which he checks regularly, so there’s no way to cheat or make excuses! So, bottom line, the more personalized approach is working for me.

Your HPE ASM is like your personal trainer for IT fitness. They help you build the plan to ensure that your IT is performing at optimal levels, risks are fully mitigated, and you’re evolving towards best-in-class. That continual improvement is a key dimension that your assigned team works on with you. The ASMs’ experience with other clients, access to a vast knowledge base, and deep understanding of your IT environment and business enables them to provide invaluable insights and recommendations, plus get the tough projects completed successfully and on time.

A conduit to deep expertise

Like myself, everyone has different personal fitness goals. Some are looking to lose a little weight, others might want to get in shape for an upcoming holiday or event, and others might be training for peak performance in a marathon or triathlon. IT is no different, as we find every customer is unique, with their own mix of legacy and new technologies, and a company direction that may be ‘cloud first’ or ‘hybrid cloud’ or ‘digitally transform’. Whatever your IT goals, your ASM and HPE team can help you get there. Our experts can be resident in your environment or a mix of local and remote, but all will be deeply knowledgeable of your business and IT. They know the culture and the language of your company; their goal is to augment and act as an extension of your IT team bringing skills, best practices and whatever resources are needed for you to succeed.

Your ASM can be a first point of contact with HPE for any big transformation you might be considering, but no one person can supply all of the expertise for every initiative. And this is where I have to leave my ‘personal trainer’ metaphor behind, but only because it gets even better from here. Supporting the ASM are the vast resources and expertise of HPE Pointnext Services and the broader HPE and partner ecosystem.

Maybe you want to move towards a container architecture with high levels of automation, and/or figure out your best mix of on-prem and cloud infrastructure. Our HPE Digital Transformation Services teams have proven expertise in architecting and deploying these solutions. Or perhaps you want to move some on-prem workloads to a more flexible, pay-as-you-go model to sidestep the usual high upfront costs or over-provisioning of a traditional capex model. Our HPE GreenLake portfolio could be the ideal solution, offering pay-for-use IT inside your datacenter and under your control for a cloud-like experience.

One of the major benefits of HPE Datacenter Care is that it frees up IT’s time and energy to take on high-reward initiatives like these. As I wrote in a previous post, CIOs want to drive transformational efforts, but too often they find that their focus is mainly on the ‘keeping the lights on’ operational tasks. That’s also one of the main themes of a new IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by HPE, titled Building a Bridge from Legacy to Modernized Data Centers with HPE Datacenter Care. It includes the image below, showing the increased complexity of modern IT environments and how HPE Datacenter Care can help you move to your future state. HPE Datacenter Care delivers significant value, whether it’s getting the most from legacy IT, moving to hybrid IT, or extending to the Edge and Cloud. The framework remains consistent, while the skills and deliverables may vary by use case. 

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IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by HPE: Building a Bridge from Legacy to Modernized Data Centers with HPE Datacenter Care, February 2019.

The power of the personal touch keeps you moving forward on your fitness goals while managing your busy schedule. In the same way, HPE Datacenter Care and your HPE ASM help you ensure that you’re not just maintaining the status quo, but constantly evolving and improving your IT while freeing up valuable time and resources for innovation.

Check out this infographic to learn more about how HPE Pointnext Services can help you simplify and improve your IT support experience.

Related posts:

No time to drive transformation? Take control with HPE operational services

Hybrid cloud at your own pace: Modernizing IT operations with HPE Datacenter Care

Rx for business vitality: Choosing the right IT support

About the Author

Gerry_Nolan

Gerry Nolan is the Worldwide Senior Director for the HPE Pointnext Operational Services Portfolio which generates approx $6B annually. In this role his goal is to enable a best in class customer support experience. His responsibilities include defining and executing the overall product management strategy, developing new service capabilities and enabling the end to end value chain from portfolio to delivery. This translates into optimal IT and business outcomes for HPE customers.

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