Gartner’s advice for service providers: Have a ‘bimodal’ roadmap or risk being left behind

Technology service provider executives and strategists must implement a bimodal roadmap if they wish to adapt to the evolving needs of today’s businesses, according to Gartner’s VP Claudio De Rold.

“Confronted by digital transformation, IT leaders recognise the need to innovate more, manage uncertainty better and establish more agility,” said Da Rold.

“We anticipate that three out of four organisations will be at some level of bimodal maturity by 2017. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for providers’ ability to aggressively transform into organisations that are able to respond to the needs of agile, bimodal enterprises.”

Many incumbent providers have found themselves challenged to make the necessary transition to embrace a bimodal work style, to deliver different product and services via new consumption models, to provide the basic sales model enhancements, and to focus on rapidly changing customer expectations across both Mode 1 and Mode 2 IT demands, explained Gartner.

So what exactly is a ‘bimodal’ roadmap?

Bimodal IT is the practice of managing two separate, coherent modes of IT delivery – one focused on stability and the other on agility.

The ‘Mode 1’ that Gartner mentions refers to traditional and sequential delivery, emphasising safety and accuracy.

Mode 2 is exploratory and nonlinear, emphasising agility and speed.

“The speed of digital business not only is dictating a new speed for IT, but a new pace for providers’ own internal innovation if they want to remain relevant and competitive,” explained Da Rold. “While a few service providers have begun to employ bimodal capabilities in some business units, they face substantial cultural and mind-set challenges in scaling this across the organisation.”

Service Providers that demonstrate understanding, alignment and prioritisation of both Mode 1 and Mode 2 initiatives will accelerate their relevance and exploit large opportunities.

“Winning providers will co-innovate with customers, get linked into their POC and pilots, and ramp up in influence, volumes and large-scale Mode 1 transformation and modernisation projects,” added Da Rold.

“Providers that are unable to meet Mode 2 business buyers’ expectations of speed, trust and credibility will face a market of cost-reduction-oriented services, frozen IT budgets and high competition for traditional spending.”

Gartner analysts will further explore how to drive innovation with major providers at the Gartner Sourcing & Strategic Vendor Relationships Summits 2016 on 6th and 7th June in London, UK. Find out more about the event here.