Building Information Technology Liquidity

Turbulent markets offer companies both challenges and opportunities. But with rigid and aging IT infrastructures, it’s hard for companies to turn on a dime and respond to fluctuations in supplies and consumer demand. A corporate culture built on agile principles helps, but companies really need to build information technology “liquidity” to meet global disturbances head on.

Turbulent markets offer companies both challenges and opportunities. But with rigid and aging IT infrastructures, it’s hard for companies to turn on a dime and respond to fluctuations in supplies and consumer demand. A corporate culture built on agile principles helps, but companies really need to build information technology “liquidity” to meet global disturbances head on.

Liquidity is a term often used in financial markets. When markets are deep and liquid it means they have assets that can be exchanged or sold in a moment’s notice with very little price fluctuation. In liquid markets, participants usually have the flexibility to sell or buy a position very rapidly, using cash or another accepted financial instrument.

Companies with liquid assets—such as lots of cash—can take advantages of market opportunities like picking up ailing competitors cheaply, or buying out inventory that another competitor desperately needs. Liquidity then, allows companies to take advantage of unplanned scenarios, and in some cases—to stay afloat when other companies are failing!

In the same way, IT organizations desperately need to embrace the concept of “liquidity”—not by having extra cash lying around, but creating agile and flexible infrastructures that can take advantage of unplanned demand. This is especially hard when an estimated 75% of the IT budget is already spent on maintaining legacy infrastructure.

Even worse, IT capacity planning efforts are often based on simple linear regression models or other quick and dirty heuristics that don’t account for huge spikes in demand such as a major corporate merger or “one-hit wonder” product.

Companies need to build a “liquid” information technology capability that can respond quickly to market and competitive agitations. Richard Villars, Vice President at IDC, says that in building liquidity, IT must; “enable variable workloads, handle the data explosion, and (be able to promptly) partner with the business (when unplanned opportunities arise)”.    

What are some examples of IT liquidity? One scenario could be extra compute and storage available on-premises and reserved for unplanned demand. These resources could be “hidden” from the business by throttling back CPU for example, and then “released” when needed.

A second scenario might be having contracts signed and cloud resources at the ready on a moment’s notice to “burst into” extra processing when required. A third option could be using outside service contractors on a retainer model basis to provide a ready set of skills when your IT staff is crunched with too many extra projects. 

In the financial world, liquid assets can allow companies to react and capitalize on market opportunities.  Liquidity in IT means that companies have enough extra compute firepower, people resources and are agile enough with IT processes to respond to unplanned events and demand, in whatever shape, form or order they arrive.

Building resistance to and combating market disruptions is an essential quality—in some cases to thrive and in others, to simply survive.