A Data-driven Maturity Model for Modernized, Automated, and Transformed IT

© 2017 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
A Data-driven Maturity Model for Modernized, Automated, and
Transformed IT
By Adam DeMattia, Director of Research; and John McKnight, Vice President of
Research and Analyst Services
April 2017
This ESG Paper was commissioned by Dell EMC
and is distributed under license from ESG.
Enterprise Strategy Group | Getting to the bigger truth.™
How IT Transformation Maturity Drives IT Agility,
Innovation, and Improved Business Outcomes
ResearchInsightsPaper

Research Insights Paper: How IT Transformation Maturity Drives IT Agility, Innovation, and Improved Business Outcomes 2
Contents
Market Overview ....................................................................................................................................................................3
Defining and Measuring IT Transformation Maturity.............................................................................................................3
The Current State of IT Transformation Maturity...................................................................................................................4
The Importance of IT Transformation Maturity......................................................................................................................5
Increased IT Agility and Responsiveness.............................................................................................................................5
Enhanced IT Spending Efficiency ........................................................................................................................................7
Higher Levels of Funding for New Projects and Innovation................................................................................................8
Higher Levels of Internal Stakeholder Satisfaction...........................................................................................................10
Improved Business Outcomes and Optimism...................................................................................................................11
Behaviors That Organizations Should Adopt to Enable IT Transformation ..........................................................................11
The Bigger Truth....................................................................................................................................................................12
Assess Your Own IT Transformation Maturity......................................................................................................................12
Appendix I: Research Methodology......................................................................................................................................13
Appendix II: Criteria for Evaluating Respondent Organizations’ IT Transformation Maturity .............................................13
Appendix III: Respondent Demographics..............................................................................................................................14

Market Overview
Businesses today are increasingly embracing what is often referred to as Digital Transformation—leveraging new
technologies to rethink business processes and help them become more agile, flexible, innovative, user-oriented, and
customer-focused. In many cases businesses are completely reinventing their offerings, business models, or both to better
compete and thrive in the digital age. This reinvention often begins with process and procedural refinement or
investments in human resources, but it is important for organizations to not overlook modernizing their underlying
technology infrastructure, which can help drive greater human and operational efficiencies.
As they are fundamentally based on technology, Digital Transformation initiatives necessitate that the underlying
technology infrastructure supporting associated business applications and IT services must evolve accordingly. However,
legacy IT is largely unprepared to meet the requirements of the new digital business: application cycle times measured in
months, if not years; siloed infrastructure that prohibits organizations from viewing their data holistically; performance
bottlenecks that impact end-user experience in a world that demands constant availability and response times; rigid
architectures that force organizations to make forklift upgrades as requirements change; and traditional provisioning
processes in which IT is often seen as a barrier rather than an enabler for the business. Organizations must resolve this
conflict between Digital Transformation goals and today’s IT reality if the business is to meet its ultimate objectives.
There are multiple avenues available to organizations to mitigate the issues introduced by legacy IT solutions. New
technology platforms can replace aging infrastructure and alleviate challenges associated with performance, scalability,
agility, and flexibility. However, it is not always easy to budget for and execute major technology refreshes, and the sheer
number of legacy applications and systems in place at many organizations can make the process daunting.
The public cloud also holds promise, allowing for rapid procurement of resources, the ability to flex requirements on the
fly, and a pay-as-you go consumption model. However, for most organizations, a full commitment to the public cloud is
simply not feasible. For example, many business-critical applications require latency performance only achieved on
premises, some data is simply too valuable or sensitive to trust to a public cloud provider, and the potential economic
benefits of the cloud are not universally applicable.
The result? The future of IT infrastructure is likely to remain hybrid in nature for the foreseeable future—organizations will
use public cloud resources for certain workloads and/or use cases, but the balance will remain supported by on-premises
IT resources. Since companies’ Digital Transformation initiatives and aspirations are unlikely to dissipate, this dynamic only
reinforces the need for those on-premises IT resources and processes to modernize and keep pace with the business.
Defining and Measuring IT Transformation Maturity
While there is a clear imperative for legacy IT to transform, many organizations are far from achieving that goal. Not only
must organizations modernize infrastructure, but they must also ensure that internal processes and organizational
relationships support the most effective utilization of that infrastructure.
To better understand these dynamics, Dell EMC commissioned ESG to create a research-based, data-driven maturity model
with the goal of identifying different stages of IT Transformation progress and determining the degree to which global
organizations have achieved those different stages. A critical objective of this research was also to understand the
benefits—if any—that result from increasing degrees of IT Transformation. Consequently, the model uses demand-side
survey data to objectively quantify the maturity of different organizations’ IT capabilities, determines what percentage of
organizations surveyed have achieved each level of IT Transformation, and identifies the correlations that exist between an
organization’s IT Transformation maturity and better (or worse) IT and business outcomes.
This maturity model is based on a global survey in which 1,000 qualified respondents from enterprise organizations,
defined as those with at least 1,000 employees worldwide, answered over 50 questions about the current state of their IT

organization and the outcomes it provides to the business. Participants were senior IT executives and managers
responsible for their company’s current and future IT infrastructure strategies. The research was broad-based in terms of
geographical coverage, including: the United States (34% of respondents), UK (12%), France (11%), Germany (12%), China
(10%), Japan (6%), Australia (5%), and Brazil (10%). The survey also included a wide range of industry verticals, including:
finance (17%), manufacturing (16%), retail (8%), technology (8%), healthcare (7%), and the public sector (7%), among
others. Please see Appendix I: Research Methodology and Appendix III: Respondent Demographics for more details about
the survey.
The maturity model segmented participants into four different levels of IT Transformation maturity based on their
responses to questions about their organization’s on-premises IT infrastructure, processes, and organizational alignment.
These questions revolved around:
• Modernized data center technology utilization: such as the use of high performance All-Flash arrays, flexible scale-
out architectures, converged and hyperconverged platforms that provide speed of deployment and ease of
management, and flexible software-defined solutions across both networking and storage domains.
• Automated IT processes: measured by the progress the organization has made in terms of running IT more like a
public cloud provider—e.g., enabling self-service infrastructure provisioning; rapid scalability; and usage-based
tracking and chargeback. The maturity model also considers the degree to which firms have adopted DevOps
methodologies and best practices, which help organizations shrink cycle times, improve software quality, and
automate software development, testing, and deployment tasks.
• Transformed business and IT relationships: enabled by consistent communication between IT and business
stakeholders and continuous inspection of IT outcomes by line of business (LOB) leadership. To emphasize the
role that IT Transformation plays in supporting truly business-level Digital Transformation initiatives, the maturity
model also scored organizations providing IT leadership with direct-line reporting to the CEO (or equivalent)
higher than those that do not.
ESG’s maturity model used a subset of ten questions relating to each of the areas above—from the 50 questions
respondents answered in total—to generate a respondent’s maturity score. Five questions in the scoring system related to
modernized data center technology utilization, three questions assessed progress in automating key processes, and two
questions measured the level of transformation achieved in aligning IT with the business.
Respondents could earn between 0 and 100 maturity points based on their responses to these questions. See Table 1 in
Appendix II: Criteria for Evaluating Respondent Organizations’ IT Transformation Maturity to review the full list of
dimensions of IT Transformation maturity on which ESG evaluated respondents.
ESG rated respondents achieving a score in the bottom quartile (0-25 points) as Stage 1 or Legacy, respondents scoring in
the second quartile (25.5-50 points) as Stage 2 or Emerging, respondents scoring in the third quartile (50.5-75 points) as
Stage 3 or Evolving, and respondents scoring in the top quartile (75.5-100 points) as Stage 4 or Transformed.
The Current State of IT Transformation Maturity
ESG’s analysis found that very few IT organizations have achieved a Transformed state, as defined by this maturity model.
Just 5% of respondents participating in the benchmark wave of research scored highly enough across the entirety of
questions used to segment responses to garner a score in the top quartile. The vast majority of respondents fell into either
the Emerging (41%) or Evolving (42%) categorizations, showing progress in some transformational characteristics, but still
with significant room for improvement. ESG rated just over one in ten respondent organizations (12%) as Legacy IT shops,
falling short on many—if not all— of the dimensions of IT Transformation included in ESG’s model (see Figure 1). A

breakdown of observed IT Transformation maturity by industry vertical can be found in Appendix III: Respondent
Demographics (see Figure 12).
Figure 1. Distribution of Respondents by Maturity Stage Achieved
Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2017
The Importance of IT Transformation Maturity
Why should organizations undertake an IT Transformation initiative? Simply put, ESG found that organizations achieving a
Transformed status reported the best results across many key performance indicators (KPIs), including: increased IT agility
and responsiveness, enhanced IT spending efficiency, higher levels of funding for new projects and innovation, higher
levels of internal stakeholder satisfaction, and improved business outcomes and optimism.
Moreover, the upward trend observed across maturity stages was extremely consistent across the broad spectrum of KPIs
included in the research. While the differences noted in KPI performance are the greatest when comparing Legacy and
Transformed organizations, ESG observed that KPIs incrementally improved across each stage in the spectrum from
Legacy, through Emerging, to Evolving, and, ultimately, to Transformed.
Increased IT Agility and Responsiveness
ESG’s research revealed that organizations rated as Transformed outperform other organizations in their ability to quickly
respond to business requests and complete projects in a timely fashion. For organizations with significant Digital
Transformation initiatives, agility is a critical capability. These organizations must not only evolve processes, products, and
even business models, but they must do so quickly to capitalize on changing customer requirements and new
opportunities where getting to market first equates to a significant advantage over the competition.
First, ESG found that Transformed organizations outperform other firms in their ability to complete IT projects ahead of
schedule. When asked to estimate what percent of IT projects over the past few years had been completed ahead, on, or
behind schedule, respondents at Transformed organizations reported that an average of 34.2% of projects were completed
faster than anticipated. This percentage compares favorably with the frequency of ahead-of-schedule projects reported by
respondents at Evolving (22.7%), Emerging (16.2%), and Legacy (11.3%) organizations (see Figure 2). A Transformed
enterprise with dozens, if not hundreds, of IT projects in a calendar year will complete three times as many of these
projects ahead of schedule versus a Legacy organization with a comparable number of projects. The impact of this is
significant whether evaluated in terms of efficiency, cost, or ability to capitalize on business opportunities.
12%
41% 42%
5%
Stage 1 - Legacy (N=116) Stage 2 - Emerging (N=410) Stage 3 - Evolving (N=421) Stage 4 - Transformed (N=53)
Respondent Organizations by IT Transformation Maturity Stage
(percent of respondents, N=1,000)

The research data implies that automation is a key enabler of agility. When respondents were asked to evaluate their
progress automating manual IT processes and tasks, Transformed organizations were more than four times as likely to
report they had made excellent progress compared with Legacy organizations (51% versus 12%). The data also reinforces
some of the benefits Transformed organizations reap as a consequence of increased agility. When respondents were asked
to evaluate their progress toward running IT as a profit center, Transformed organizations were nearly seven times as likely
to report they had made excellent progress compared with Legacy organizations (47% versus 7%). Similarly, when
respondents were asked to evaluate their progress in leveraging IT resources to speed product innovation and time to
market, Transformed organizations were nearly six times as likely to report they had made excellent progress compared
with Legacy organizations (53% versus 9%).
Figure 2. Timeframes for IT Project Completion, by IT Transformation Maturity
ESG also found that Transformed organizations can respond to provisioning requests from the business more quickly than
their less mature counterparts. For instance, when respondents were asked to estimate their typical virtual machine (VM)
provisioning time, Transformed organizations were six times as likely to report they typically fulfilled requests is under four
hours versus Legacy organizations; 32% of respondents at Transformed organizations met this level of service. By
comparison, just 20% of Evolving, 19% of Emerging, and 5% of Legacy IT shops reported the same degree of
responsiveness.
Finally, ESG found that development teams at Transformed organizations operate more efficiently than organizations in
other maturity tiers. When asked to characterize the timeframe in which the majority of internally developed application
releases and updates are completed, 34% of respondents at Transformed organizations reported the majority of code
releases happen ahead of schedule. This percentage compares favorably with what was reported by respondents at
Evolving (16%) and Emerging (9%) organizations, and is four times the frequency observed among Legacy (9%)
organizations.
While correlations do not equate to causation, ESG posits that several dimensions of IT Transformation maturity directly
impact an IT organization’s ability to move quickly. For example, frequent communication with, and accountability to,
business leadership helps ensure that IT clearly understands business requirements and IT’s associated commitments.
Usage of flexible infrastructure architectures like those leveraging scale-out and/or software-defined principles allows IT to
11.3%
53.7%
35.1%
16.2%
53.3%
30.5%
22.7%
49.5%
27.9%
34.2%
45.0%
20.8%
Percent of projects completed ahead of
schedule
Percent of projects on schedule Percent of projects behind schedule
Over the last few years, roughly what percent of your IT projects have been completed in
each of the following timeframes? (mean percent of projects)
Stage 1 - Legacy Stage 2 - Emerging Stage 3 - Evolving Stage 4 - Transformed
Transformed organizations
complete 3X as many IT projects
ahead of schedule vs. Legacy.!

react to changing requirements more quickly and with less disruption. Allowing users more self-service authority enables
them to spin resources up and down on demand, lessening the impression—or reality—of “IT as a bottleneck” to speed of
deployment and time to market. These characteristics are more prevalent among Transformed IT organizations and their
collective impact is likely at play in the positive IT outcomes observed among that segment of research participants.
Enhanced IT Spending Efficiency
Traditionally, organizations’ lines of business have viewed the IT function as a cost center. One consequence of this
mindset is the continuous pressure placed on IT to maximize capabilities at the lowest possible cost. This research
uncovered that, while organizations that have progressed further along the IT Transformation curve are not typically
viewed as a cost center, they nevertheless consistently achieve higher spending efficiency than their less mature
counterparts. Multiple metrics support this finding.
For example, more transformed IT organizations complete a higher percentage of IT projects under budget. When asked to
estimate what percent of IT projects over the past few years they had completed under, on, or over budget, respondents
at Transformed organizations on average reported completing 25% of their projects under budget. This percentage
compares favorably with the frequency reported by respondents at Evolving (23%), Emerging (17.5%), and Legacy (14.9%)
organizations (see Figure 3). As any CIO will attest, the ability to complete an incremental 10% of IT projects under budget
can have a dramatic impact on the total IT budget picture and ROI (return on investment) to the business.
Figure 3. Budget Trends for Completed IT Projects, by IT Transformation Maturity
Additional data analysis finds that Transformed organizations tend to be able to stretch their IT funds further than other
segments within the maturity model. As part of this research, ESG asked respondents to report both their organization’s
total IT budget as well as the total number of mission-critical applications supported. Using the latter as a proxy for IT
environment complexity, ESG analyzed the average cost per mission-critical application supported to determine if
Transformed organizations spend less annually to operate their environments. As shown in Figure 4, Transformed
organizations spend 14% less per mission-critical application in their environments.
14.9%
56.8%
28.3%
17.5%
54.6%
28.0%
23.0%
47.4%
29.6%
25.0%
46.5%
28.5%
Percent of projects under budget Percent of projects on budget Percent of projects over budget
Over the last few years, roughly what percent of your IT projects have been completed
under, on, or over budget? (mean percent of projects)
complete >10% more IT projects
under budget vs. Legacy.!

Figure 4. Ratio of Total IT Budget Divided by Number of Mission-critical Applications Supported, by IT
Transformation Maturity
One could argue that many of the motivations organizations have in mind when considering IT Transformation in the
context of broader strategic initiatives are top-line focused (e.g., personalizing customer service, speeding time to market,
innovating offerings), but this data also shows that Transformed organizations achieve greater bottom-line efficiency in
their IT environments.
Higher Levels of Funding for New Projects and Innovation
Broadly speaking, organizations can think of their total IT budget in two main categories: maintaining existing systems and
investing in new projects. As previously noted, Transformed organizations operate their environments at a lower per-
application cost than all other segments in ESG’s maturity model, a reasonable proxy for the cost of keeping IT operations
up and running. It follows that these organizations should therefore have a larger percentage of their IT budget available to
invest in new initiatives.
ESG’s research data validates this hypothesis. When respondents were asked to estimate the percentage of their
organization’s IT spend on ongoing maintenance of existing system versus new projects or initiatives, respondents at
Transformed organizations reported that an average of 46% of their budget is expended on innovation, outstripping the
percentage observed among Evolving (42%), Emerging (38%), and Legacy (34%) organizations (see Figure 5). Conversely,
Legacy organizations spend an average of two-thirds (66%) of their IT budget on maintaining existing systems, compared
with just more than half (54%) for fully Transformed IT groups.
$2,179,245
$1,872,118
All Other Stages Stage 4 - Transformed
Average IT budget divided by average number of mission-critical applications
Stage 4 organizations spend 14%
less per mission-critical application
relative to all other stages.
!

Figure 5. Percentage of IT Budget Spent on New Projects and Initiatives versus Ongoing Maintenance, by IT
Transformation Maturity
How does this behavior manifest itself in financial terms? On average, Transformed organizations surveyed by ESG
reported spending $378M on IT annually. If these organizations allocated IT budgets the same way that Legacy
organizations do, they would spend 66% on maintenance of existing systems and just 34% on new projects. This would
amount to $128.6M available for new projects annually. However, Transformed organizations report spending just 54% of
their budget on maintenance of existing systems and can spend 46% on new projects. This amounts to $172.6M available
for new projects annually, an increase of $44M compared with a Legacy organization operating with the same budget
resources (see Figure 6). While the absolute dollar increase is dependent on the size of a given organization’s IT budget,
the percentage difference applies to IT budgets of all sizes.
Figure 6. Average Spend on New Projects/Innovation, by IT Transformation Maturity
34%
66%
38%
62%
42%
58%
46%
54%
Percent of IT budget allocated to new projects and initiatives Percent of IT budget allocated to maintaining existing sytems
and services
Considering your company’s total IT budget for 2016, what percent was allocated for
maintaining existing systems and services versus allocated to new projects and initiatives?
(mean percent of budget)
Transformed organizations allocate an incremental
12% of their annual IT spend to innovation vs. Legacy.
!
$128,600,000
$172,600,000
Stage 1 - Legacy Stage 4 - Transformed
Average IT spending allocated to new projects and initiatives, Transformed organizations
versus Legacy organizations with equal total IT budget size

This example illustrates a significant difference assuming budget parity between Transformed and Legacy organizations.
However, ESG also found differences in IT funding trends between organizations achieving different levels of IT
Transformation. When respondents were asked if their IT budget would increase, stay flat, or decrease in 2017 relative
2016, respondents employed at Transformed organizations were twice as likely compared with Legacy organizations to
expect an increase: 92% of respondents at Transformed organizations reported an increase was expected compared with
85% of respondents at Evolving organizations, 66% of respondents at Emerging organizations, and 47% of respondents at
Legacy organizations. Given the improved outcomes delivered by Transformed IT organizations, it is not surprising to note
they are the most likely to receive increased investment from the business.
These dynamics create a business advantage for Transformed organizations. In the digital economy, technology is central
to the products and services organizations sell, and organizations’ ability to invest in new technology initiatives drives
competitive differentiation.
Higher Levels of Internal Stakeholder Satisfaction
In this paper, we have presented a diverse set of outcomes that correlate to an organization’s level of IT Transformation,
showing that Transformed organizations tend to respond to a dynamic business landscape more quickly, operate their
environments at a lower cost, and allocate greater resources to new and innovative initiatives compared with their less
mature counterparts. While these tendencies benefit the businesses these IT organizations support, does the research
show empirically that IT’s business constituents have taken notice?
The answer is an unqualified “Yes.” When respondents working at Transformed IT organizations were asked to categorize
how their line of business stakeholders feel about the IT organization, 21% (seven times the rate observed among Legacy
organizations) reported that they are seen as a competitive differentiator and 49% reported they were seen as a valued
service provider (see Figure 7). Combined, this 70% favorable view is much higher than the comparable incidence among
Evolving (35%), Emerging (34%), and Legacy (31%) organizations. The rare Transformed IT organization is clearly the
example for others to follow—being viewed as an indispensable part of the business and a clear driver of business value at
twice the rate (or more) of their less mature counterparts.
Figure 7. LOB Perception of IT, by IT Transformation Maturity
3%
28%
61%
8%
2%
32%
58%
7%7%
28%
55%
10%
21%
49%
21%
9%
Competitive differentiator Valued service provider Stable service provider, but
ultimately a cost center
Business inhibitor
In general, how would you characterize the way your line-of-business stakeholders currently
view the IT organization? (Percent of respondents)
are 7X as likely to view IT as
a competitive differentiator
vs. Legacy.!

Improved Business Outcomes and Optimism
One could use any of the correlations discussed in this paper in isolation to effectively argue that investments in IT
Transformation are worthwhile for organizations. However, companies operate in a world driven by business results. For
investments in IT Transformation to build, sustain, and grow momentum over time, it is important to draw a link between
those investments and the overall success of the business. This link is also validated by the survey data. For example, ESG
asked respondents about both their organizations’ recent business success, as well as the level of optimism they felt for
their organizations’ future-facing business outlook. The differences in how respondents working at Transformed
organizations answered these questions, compared with those lower on the IT Transformation curve, were striking:
• Ninety-six percent of respondents working at organizations that had achieved the highest level of IT
Transformation reported their organization had exceeded its annual revenue goals for FY2016. By contrast, only
44% of respondents working at organizations segmented in the lowest tier of IT Transformation maturity reported
the same success. In short, organizations achieving the Transformed IT status report exceeding their FY2016
revenue goals at more than twice the rate of organizations receiving a Legacy IT grade.
• Furthermore, 85% of respondents working at Transformed organizations reported they felt their organization was
in a very strong or strong position to compete in its market over the next few years. Just 43% of respondents
working at organizations with legacy-based IT technologies felt the same level of confidence (see Figure 8).
Figure 8. Respondents’ Optimism for Business Success, by IT Transformation Maturity
As this data shows, there is a clear correlation between the level of IT Transformation maturity within organizations, and
both their current and forward-looking business success.
Behaviors That Organizations Should Adopt to Enable IT Transformation
Based on ESG’s research, fully Transformed IT organizations are admittedly rare at this time, but as this research shows,
there are incremental benefits to be had by making any progress along the maturity curve—in other words, by moving
from a Stage 1 to a Stage 2, or Stage 2 to Stage 3, organizations can also yield significantly improved business and IT
outcomes. There are several behaviors that other organizations can emulate—and corresponding questions that these
organizations should ask themselves—as they look for ways to optimize their level of maturity over time:
43%
54%
65%
85%
Percent of respondents believing their organization is in a very strong or strong position to
compete and succeed in their market over the next few years, by IT Transformation Maturity

1. Transformed IT organizations empower end-users to self-provision IT resources and have incorporated other
capabilities typically associated with public cloud services such as enabling rapid resource scaling and charging
back business units based on resource usage. If your IT organization placed more cloud-like capabilities in the
hands of its users, would they benefit, and/or be less likely to “source around” internal IT?
2. Transformed IT organizations ensure alignment with the business by meeting frequently with business leadership to
discuss how IT outcomes track against expectations. Transformed organizations reinforce this alignment with
formal reporting structures that give CIOs direct access to their CEOs and other executive leadership positions. Is
your IT organization, and the outcomes it provides to the business, evaluated consistently enough and with
enough depth at the highest levels of the organization to ensure alignment with business priorities?
3. Transformed IT organizations place strategic bets on a broad array of modern data center technologies, from high-
performance, easy-to-scale storage systems, through prepackaged, easy-to-integrate converged and
hyperconverged systems, to flexible, software-defined architectures. Has your IT organization conducted a detailed
inventory and assessment of its infrastructure to identify legacy technologies that may be creating performance
bottlenecks, cost overruns, slower time-to-market, and capability shortfalls?
4. Transformed IT organizations embrace “agile” and DevOps principles and best practices to optimize development
innovation, timeliness, and quality. Are your organization’s development and operations teams tightly aligned or
hindered by legacy technologies, processes, and organizational structures? Is the core IT group struggling to keep
up with the number of development projects and rapidly evolving user requirements?
5. Finally, Transformed IT organizations realize that as legacy IT evolves, new skills, abilities, and ways of thinking about
how IT serves the business will be essential to success. Has your organization conducted a thorough analysis of its
most important resource—its people—to identify and eliminate skill gaps which hamper IT’s ability to execute its
strategic initiatives? Conversely, is your organization developing new hiring priorities, training programs, and
career path options that will ensure both IT and Digital Transformation success?
The Bigger Truth
Companies today increasingly rely on technology to grow and improve all aspects of their business, from improving
employee productivity, through accelerating new product development, to increasing customer engagement and
satisfaction. IT Transformation—the use of modernized data center technologies, automation of IT processes, and
transformation of organizational relationships—should play a role in increasing the ability of organizations to capitalize on
technology in the digital economy. ESG’s research validates this expectation. Organizations seeking to increase IT agility
and responsiveness, enhance IT spending efficiency, secure higher levels of funding for new projects, rate more highly with
their internal stakeholders, and optimize business outcomes should study the habits and characteristics of those
organizations that have achieved higher levels of IT Transformation, and should look to affect change wherever possible to
align with the principles and success factors identified in this research.
Assess Your Own IT Transformation Maturity
To enable greater IT Transformation maturity, you must first understand where you stand today. Dell EMC and ESG have
made available an interactive online assessment based on this research. It will allow you to see where you stand in relation
to your peers and help you understand your strengths and weaknesses. Start the journey toward transforming your IT
organization into a competitive differentiator today.
Launch Assessment Now!

Appendix I: Research Methodology
To gather data for this report, ESG conducted a comprehensive online survey of IT managers from private- and public-
sector organizations in the Americas (United States and Brazil), Western Europe (United Kingdom, France, and Germany),
and Asia (China, Japan, and Australia) between December 9, 2016 and January 5, 2017. To qualify for this survey,
respondents were required to be familiar with their organizations’ current and future IT budget and spending plans and
involved in their organizations’ infrastructure (e.g., storage, servers, networking, virtualization, and/or data protection)
purchase processes. All respondents were provided an incentive to complete the survey in the form of cash awards and/or
cash equivalents.
After filtering out unqualified respondents, removing duplicate responses, and screening the remaining completed
responses (on several criteria) for data integrity, a final sample of 1,000 respondents remained.
Note: Totals in figures and tables throughout this report may not add up to 100% due to rounding.
Appendix II: Criteria for Evaluating Respondent Organizations’ IT Transformation Maturity
ESG’s maturity model determined organizations’ IT Transformation maturity based on respondents’ answers to a subset of
questions included within the over 50 questions in the survey. These questions are listed in Table 1.
Table 1. Dimensions of IT Transformation Maturity on which ESG Evaluated Respondents
Questions Used to Score Organizations’ IT Transformation Maturity
Modernized
Data Center
Technology
Does your IT organization utilize Flash storage to support on-premises applications and in which form
factor is Flash storage typically deployed?
Does your IT organization utilize systems with scale-out architectures and what percent of on-premises
applications does your organization support with this type of infrastructure?
Does your IT organization utilize Converged Infrastructure/Hyperconverged Infrastructure and what
percent of on-premises applications does your organization support with this type of infrastructure?
Is your IT organization committed to, interested in, or not interested in the utilization of software-defined
storage technologies?
Is your IT organization committed to, interested in, or not interested in the utilization of software-defined
networking technologies?
Automated IT
Processes
Does your IT organization enable developers and/or line-of-business end-users to provision on-premises IT
resources (VMs, storage capacity, network connectivity, etc.) in a self-service fashion?
How much progress has your IT organization made towards running on-premises applications with the
same abilities as a public cloud provider?
How broadly has your IT operations/development organization adopted formal DevOps principles and
practices?
Transformed IT-
Business
Relationships
How frequently are the IT organization and the outcomes it delivers (e.g., availability, agility, cost)
evaluated by C-suite business executives (CEO, CFO, COO) or the board of directors?
To whom does the most senior IT executive at your company report?

Appendix III: Respondent Demographics
The data presented in this report is based on a survey of 1,000 qualified respondents. The figures below detail the
demographics of the respondent base, including individual respondents’ current job responsibilities, as well as respondent
organizations’ total number of employees, primary industry, and annual revenue.
Respondents by Job Responsibility
Figure 9. Survey Respondents, by Job Responsibility
Respondents by Number of Employees
Figure 10. Survey Respondents, by Number of Employees
Senior IT
management (e.g.,
CIO, VP of IT, Director
of IT, etc.)
62%
IT management
35%
IT staff
3%
Which of the following best describes your current responsibility within your
organization? (Percent of respondents, N=1,000)
1,000 to 2,499
20%
2,500 to 4,999
23%
5,000 to 9,999
24%
10,000 to 19,999
12%
20,000 or more
21%
How many total employees does your organization have worldwide? (Percent of
respondents, N=1,000)

Respondents by Industry
Respondents were asked to identify their organization’s primary industry. In total, ESG received completed, qualified
responses from individuals in 21 distinct vertical industries, plus an “Other” category. Respondents were then grouped into
the broader categories shown in Figure 11. Additionally, Figure 12 shows the distribution of respondents’ organizations by
the Transformation stage ascribed by the maturity model.
Figure 11. Survey Respondents, by Industry
Figure 12. Industry, by IT Transformation Maturity Stage
Business Services
5%
Government
7%
Manufacturing
24%
Financial Services
17%
Health Care
7%
Communications &
Media
5%
Retail/Wholesale
8%
Other
27%
What is your organization’s primary industry? (Percent of respondents, N=1,000)
13%
46%
26%
15%
10%
62%
26%
1%
11%
39%
44%
5%
15%
42% 40%
4%
8%
27%
61%
4%6%
28%
60%
6%8%
40%
49%
2%
12%
42%
39%
6%
Organization Industry, by IT Transformation Maturity Stage
(percent of respondents)
Business Services (N=58) Government (N=68) Manufacturing (N=244) Finance (N=167)
Health Care (N=71) Communications & Media (N=47) Retail/Wholesale (N=84) Other (N=265)

Respondents by Annual Revenue
Figure 13. Survey Respondents, by Annual Revenue
All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The
Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject
to change from time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this
publication, in whole or in part, whether in hard-copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express
consent of The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., is in violation of U.S. copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable,
criminal prosecution. Should you have any questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at 508.482.0188.
4%
7% 7%
13%
27%
20%
10% 11%
3%
Less than
$250 million
$250 million
to $499.999
million
$500 million
to $749.999
million
$750 million
to $999.999
million
$1 billion to
$4.999
billion
$5 billion to
$9.999
billion
$10 billion to
$19.999
billion
$20 billion or
more
Not
applicable
(e.g., public
sector, non-
profit)
What is your organization’s total annual revenue ($US)? (Percent of respondents, N=1,000)
www.esg-global.com contact@esg-global.com P. 508.482.0188
Enterprise Strategy Group is an IT analyst, research, validation, and strategy firm that provides
actionable insight and intelligence to the global IT community.

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