Evergreen IT or Nevergreen IT – What’s the Ideal
Enterprise Strategy?

What are enterprises spending on?

Enterprises across the globe are spending millions of dollars on procuring world class IT assets, both software and hardware, for their employees to improve productivity and increase efficiency. The cost of managing an IT estate to propel the required business outcomes proves to be expensive as these organizations retain and are largely dependent on legacy systems. There is a persistent challenge of maintaining the technical health of the organization’s enterprise systems. Vendors are constantly changing their release schedules and the battle to manage the underlying technology components such as the operating systems, databases, browsers, and development code requires continuous focus.

Enterprises struggle to execute transformation projects as the businesses do not understand nor have a a clear plan of action to maintain “Evergreen IT”. This is predominantly because of lack of visibility into the IT estate and unavailability and/ or poor utilization of planning and management solutions, making maintenance of IT estates overly expensive.

Why do organizations need to invest in automation?

Workplace automation is no longer a luxury. It’s now essential to accomplish monotonous and complex workplace processes in a manner that can better utilize the strength of the manpower of the enterprise. The key to mitigating these issues lies in allocating both the right people and the right technology to the Evergreen process. Smart automation solutions, from vendors like Juriba, can be used to speed up the entire process of implementing Windows updates, from planning the deployment to testing all applications and managing the change. Some organizations create dedicated teams within IT departments to focus on the Evergreen process year-round, while others outsource the responsibility to free up the time of their in-house staff. Both strategies are equally valid and yield benefits. 

Enterprises can:

• Proactively manage change by creating systems that automate complex workplace management processes involving multiple touchpoints and process outcomes that in turn trigger actions into other systems
• Reactively execute single, yet repetitive workplace-related tasks in an automated fashion with minimal or no direct involvement from humans

Why do you need an evergreen IT strategy?

Consumer demands are rapidly changing, and most organizations are working towards digital transformations where adaptations to changes in lightning speed is the call of the hour.

Microsoft (MS) is a classic example of how this is done. In 2015, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would be its final iteration of its operating system. However, MS has now launched Windows 11. Both these OS will be adopting an Evergreen model, meaning that there will be a continuous flow of small, incremental enhancements to either operating system, until Windows 10 reaches its end of life in 2025. Every second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft will release new security patches and new features in updates due in the spring and autumn  of each year. The same applies for Office 365 updates as well.

Post COVID-19, the hybrid working model is here to stay and majority of the global organizations are embracing it. Gone are the days where most of the OS updates would happen over 12-18 months. With a shorter support window, the cadence is now set for 6 months. 

How to keep your estate evergreen?

Globally, enterprises don’t account for “orchestration” in the context of enabling and managing a modern workplace. Migration efforts have not been synchronous across the enterprise leaving organizations to spend millions every year to execute transformation projects and still not be evergreen. 

Wipro’s Evergreen IT services enable you to achieve a high rate of efficiency while allowing you manage, upgrade, and orchestrate all activities involved in maintaining an enterprise-wide evergreen IT estate rather than a poorly managed nevergreen IT estate.

What will enterprises derive from Evergreen IT?

Enterprises have typically tried to utilize new systems and cutting-edge technologies without having a clear plan of action for managing existing IT estate. This leaves a huge gap to measure, maintain and transform the IT estate in an efficient manner. Listed below are the top outcomes enterprises can ensure an Evergreen IT:

1. Get a true sense of existing IT estate (hardware & software) – Reduce hours of manual effort in running scripts and extracting data. Most organizations have a limited and distorted view about their current IT environment and this lack of visibility creates challenges in budgetary or financial planning to drive modernization.
2. Reduce compliance issues, security breaches and avoid shadow IT – Many enterprises spend millions of dollars to build workstations and manage compliance, but end users often download freeware and unapproved applications, often called shadow IT, which may cause a major security breach compromising organizations’ data, resulting in unexpected and additional spending.
   
3. Manage readiness with minimal effort and optimized resources - Any modernization activity impacts IT budgets, end user productivity and experience. Automation through Evergreen IT services helps reduce manual effort and gaps in planning, thereby reducing the pressure on IT budgets, improving productivity, and enhancing the quality of end user experience.
4. Live feed on projects – Reduce dependency on manual excel sheet-based tracking and provide a live real time view to the stakeholders at any point in time.
5. Deliver workplace modernization in an effective manner through automation – With fewer hours spent on mundane activities, reduction in manual effort in tracking and reporting helps fast track enterprises’ modernization projects efficiently. Employees will have faster access to the latest software features, enabling them to work more productively

Evergreen IT is critical to improve productivity and end user experience. The design and processes are key to effectively manage transformations and maintain IT assets.  It shifts the focus from "keeping the lights on" to driving digital transformation — making an organization more agile, competitive, and secure as the IT estate is always up-to-date and compliant.

Evergreen IT is here to stay, and we must embrace it.  Indeed, in many ways, the Evergreen approach can be seen as a landmark stage in the journey towards ‘Everything-as-a-Service’, in which all IT requirements will be met with subscriptions.

Payel Basu

DWS Practice Strategy, Product Evangelist, Wipro

Payel is a Practice Development & Strategic Leader with nearly 15 years of industry experience pre-sales, practice, consulting, and transformation in the digital workplace domain. She performs a techno-business role, and currently leads the key alliances for LiveWorkspace™ and various product and practice development initiatives.