What is IT Transformation? + 8 Steps To Start Successfully

Multiple authors

February 20, 2025

20 min read

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IT transformation isn’t just a buzzword — it’s an opportunity to simplify operations, reduce costs, and make businesses more adaptable.

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With advances in cloud computing, automation, and low-code development, modernizing IT is now faster and easier. Businesses can integrate systems, automate tasks, and scale without major disruptions.

Read on to learn more about:

What IT transformation really means
Key challenges businesses face
Real-world success stories
The business impact of IT transformation
How low-code tools accelerate It modernization

Before we discuss how companies are using IT transformation, let’s define what it is.

What is IT transformation?

IT transformation is about optimizing operations by adopting technologies that make IT use at your organization more cost-effective and overall efficient.

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Many businesses start by automating manual processes like system maintenance and customer support, reducing the need for human intervention.

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Cost savings often come from optimizing IT spending. Companies cut waste by reviewing licenses, eliminating unused applications (shelfware), or moving to more cost-effective cloud solutions.

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Modernizing data storage to increase availability is another major focus. Breaking down silos and integrating systems makes it easier to analyze information and extract insights. When data flows freely, decision-making becomes faster and more informed.

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Ultimately, the goal of IT transformation is to ensure that IT can support business growth instead of being a cost center.

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Over the last two decades, IT has quickly transformed thanks to these innovations:

Cloud computing: Providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud have enabled businesses to outsource infrastructure management, reduce costs, and scale with minimal risk. Companies can also take advantage of distributed networks and deploy apps globally in minutes.
Identity and access control tools: Tools like SSO (Single Sign-On), IAM (Identity and Access Management), and Zero Trust frameworks simplify network and system access.
High availability & resilience: Modern load balancing, failover systems, and distributed databases that ensure uptime and business continuity, even during outages.
Modern data management: Data lakes and serverless data processing tools that allow businesses to store, access, and analyze data more efficiently.
Better governance & compliance management: Automated security monitoring, role-based access controls (RBAC), and audit logging help enforce policies across applications and infrastructure.
Automation & AI: Businesses are automating repetitive tasks like server provisioning, anomaly detection, and security monitoring.
Better change management: CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible) have enabled teams to deploy updates multiple times a day with minimal risk.
Enterprise-scale software management: Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes, AWS ECS, Azure Kubernetes Service) has allowed applications to scale independently of the underlying infrastructure.

The main drivers of IT transformation

IT transformation is being driven by a mix of competitive, financial, technological, and regulatory forces, along with major global shifts that have changed the way businesses operate.

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Here’s a closer look at these drivers:

Competition

Companies that strategically invest in modern infrastructure, automation, and data-driven decision-making are outperforming legacy businesses. Nowhere is this more apparent than in banking. Traditional banks with decades-old IT infrastructures struggle to keep pace with fintechs like Revolut and Chime.

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These digital-native banks use cloud-based systems, real-time transactions, and AI-driven fraud detection to deliver a faster and better customer experience.

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Same story in retail. Amazon is using AI-driven demand forecasting, automating warehouse tasks, and leveraging customer data at scale to provide hyper-personalized recommendations. In effect, they are optimizing customer engagement and driving higher sales.

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Traditional retailers that haven’t modernized their IT stack struggle to keep up because they are either too slow to adopt new technology or stuck with too much tech debt to make any meaningful progress.

Financial pressures to modernize

Businesses that maintain on-premise infrastructure may face challenges related to hardware maintenance, resource scaling, and potential system downtimes. However, keeping systems in-house may still be the best option for companies with strict regulatory requirements or heightened data security concerns.

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That said, companies that shift to cloud-based infrastructure can significantly reduce costs — some save up to 66% — while improving disaster recovery and system reliability.

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Automation is another key cost-saver. It eliminates manual work in areas like customer support (AI chatbots), IT operations (self-healing infrastructure), and finance (incorporating automation into invoicing and reconciliation).

Customer expectations

Consumers now expect real-time, personalized, and mobile-friendly services. If a company can’t deliver, customers will switch to someone who can.

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These require businesses to deeply integrate AI, machine learning, and data analytics into everything — from personalized recommendations to dynamic pricing. Consumers have come to expect high availability, zero downtime, and up-to-date information — which heavily encourages IT teams to shift to cloud-based, auto-scaling, and centralized data systems to reduce lag time and improve overall uptime.

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Basically, customers want more, faster, and safer — and IT has no choice but to keep up.

Regulatory compliance and cybersecurity concerns

Regulatory standards are constantly changing, with the EU AI Act and the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) being introduced just in the last year. Failing to meet these standards can mean multi-million-dollar fines and reputational damage. Businesses have to upgrade their systems with better encryption, access controls, and secure data storage.

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Meanwhile, with the looming risk of data breaches and ransomware, IT teams are pushed to adopt any technologies that can automate and accurately identify potential threats - AI has been particularly popular here of late with tools like Darktrace leveraging self-learning AI to detect cyber threats in real-time.

The COVID Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic forced companies to rapidly upgrade IT infrastructure for remote work. Businesses scrambled to adopt cloud-based tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, Asana, and Jira for communication and project management.

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Security became a top priority, too. This led to the widespread adoption of zero-trust systems, identity management (Okta, Duo Security), and endpoint protection (CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint) to secure sensitive data and remote laptops and phones.

Is IT transformation only for large enterprises?

No, IT transformation isn’t just for large enterprises — it’s just as critical for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), though the scale and approach might differ.

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Large enterprises usually have legacy systems, complex infrastructures, and regulatory requirements, which make IT transformation a massive, multi-year effort.

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SMBs, on the other hand, often have fewer legacy constraints, which means they can adopt cloud-first strategies and deeply integrate new technologies. Many small businesses are moving directly to SaaS platforms like Google Workspace and QuickBooks Online, rather than investing in on-prem software. They also rely on AI-driven tools, automation, and digital payment systems to stay competitive without needing a massive IT team.

Benefits of IT transformation

Seeing real-world examples is great, but what are the actual takeaways? Here’s how businesses gain from modernizing their IT infrastructure:

Faster time-to-market

IT transformation is shifting away from long development cycles and slow deployment timelines because organizations no longer need to reconcile legacy systems or self-manage every step of the process. Low-code platforms have been a popular way to solve this problem as they reduce much of the work required to build and deploy apps. They do that by abstracting many of the details that would otherwise be self-service or manual.

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Instead of waiting months to roll out new solutions, businesses can rapidly test MVPs and pivot based on market feedback.

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Meanwhile, for teams building custom internal apps and flows, automation plays a huge role in speeding things up. Automated CI/CD pipelines drastically cut deployment times from months to days or even hours. Companies can continuously iterate and refine their products much quicker.

Closing gaps with legacy systems via APIs & AI

Instead of replacing entire legacy systems, API integrations and automation tools like MuleSoft and Apigee allow legacy systems to communicate with modern applications. Businesses can add new capabilities (AI, automation, analytics) without replacing core systems.

Increased security

Traditionally, security teams had to manually monitor threats from cybercriminals, insider threats, and automated attacks such as malware, ransomware, and phishing campaigns. They had to investigate alerts and ensure compliance with regulations — an approach that is slow, resource-intensive, and prone to mistakes.

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With IT transformation, companies are adopting SIEM platforms like Splunk and IBM QRadar to automatically analyze network activity, detect suspicious behavior, and flag potential threats in real-time.

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Beyond SIEM, Single Sign-On (SSO) and larger enterprise permissioning systems have become essential for maintaining security across all SaaS apps.

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Instead of managing access manually for every tool and platform, SSO centralizes authentication. It allows employees to securely log in to all the apps they use with a single set of credentials. Paired with role-based access control (RBAC) and permissioning systems, this ensures that users only access the data and applications they need.

Boosts productivity and collaboration

With remote and hybrid work becoming the norm, businesses need real-time communication across teams. IT transformation plays a key role in making this possible by replacing outdated, email-heavy workflows with modern collaboration tools.

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These tools help teams:

Work on shared documents in real-time without version control issues.
Conduct virtual meetings and brainstorming sessions from anywhere.
Use chat and video features for faster communication, reducing reliance on long email chains.

Additionally, by introducing tools for process automation, teams can streamline repetitive tasks like invoicing, HR approvals, and reporting, freeing employees to focus on higher-value work.

Improves customer experience

Businesses are using AI, automation, and data-driven insights to deliver faster, more personalized service. Here are a few ways technology is transforming customer interactions:

Faster response times: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants (e.g., ChatGPT-based bots, ServiceNow Virtual Agent) handle common queries instantly.
Personalized interactions: AI and real-time data analytics enable customized recommendations, dynamic pricing, and targeted promotions.
Omnichannel experience: Integrated systems give customers a consistent experience between web, mobile apps, social media, and in-store interactions.
Self-serve support: AI-driven knowledge bases and automated workflows allow customers to track orders, modify subscriptions, or troubleshoot issues themselves.
High service availability: Cloud-based infrastructure and automated scaling have improved service availability. Customers can access support, make purchases, and interact with services anytime, with minimal downtime.

Beyond AI and automation, using low-code or self-serve development platforms lets teams build custom apps to streamline manual tasks AI can’t fully automate. Instead of juggling multiple tools or outdated data, they can centralize everything in one place.

Common challenges in IT transformation

Knowing what you’re up against can help you stay ahead of these issues. Here are some of the challenges in IT transformation with solutions:

Psychological organizational hurdles

A lot of IT transformation projects struggle — not because of tech issues, but because of people. Resistance to change, leadership buy-in, and internal silos can slow everything down.

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Employees often stick to old systems because they’re familiar, or they fear that automation might replace their jobs. Instead of adopting new tools, they find workarounds, hurting productivity. Leadership buy-in is another roadblock. If executives don’t see a clear ROI, they hesitate. A lot of them are cautious about big IT projects because they’ve seen them fail before, or they’re worried about costs.

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To fix this, involve employees early so they feel heard, and ensure leadership understands the real business benefits.

Integration challenges with legacy systems.

Many companies aim to modernize but still rely on legacy infrastructure critical to sectors like banking, healthcare, and manufacturing. Replacing them overnight is too expensive and risky, but keeping them as-is isn’t an option either.

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An obvious fix is to integrate the new tech into the old systems. Legacy systems weren’t built to work with modern apps. They lack APIs, don’t support real-time data exchange, and often run on outdated languages like COBOL. That makes integration slow and complicated.

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Some companies address this by building API layers that wrap legacy software so it can communicate with modern platforms. Others take a gradual modernization approach, sometimes extracting and processing data from legacy systems without a full overhaul.

Misalignment with business objectives

One of the other reasons IT transformation fails is because it doesn’t actually align with what the business needs. For example, IT might push for a full cloud migration, but if the business needs faster customer service response times, just moving systems to the cloud won’t fix that.

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IT teams need to translate technical improvements into business value. This could reduce costs, increase revenue, improve customer experience, or make employees more productive.

Data migration & management Issues

Companies are shifting to cloud-based data lakes and real-time analytics to keep data structured, accessible, and secure.

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However, migrating data isn’t simple. It involves huge datasets, critical business records, and outdated formats. If mishandled, it can lead to data loss, corruption, security risks, and downtime. Imagine a bank migrating customer data only to find missing or incorrect balances.

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To avoid disaster, IT teams need a clear migration strategy. That could be a lift and shift (moving everything as-is), re-platforming (making some updates), or full modernization (rebuilding databases entirely).

High implementation costs

IT transformation is meant to save money, but the upfront costs can be massive. Migrating legacy systems, buying new software, training employees, hiring developers, and upgrading security all add up. Organizations may also run legacy and new systems in parallel to avoid downtime, which temporarily doubles the initial operating costs.

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Teams can take a phased approach starting with quick wins first to manage costs. Smaller projects that show immediate ROI make it easier to get leadership buy-in for larger investments.

8 steps to utilize IT transformation effectively

Without a clear transformation strategy, businesses risk wasted budgets, stalled projects, and low adoption rates.

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To avoid these pitfalls, let's break down the key steps to successfully executing IT transformation. Here they are:

1. Align company vision and objectives

This step starts with collaboration between IT leaders and business executives. Companies need to ask, ‘What’s the business problem we’re solving?’ If the goal is faster product launches, IT focuses on DevOps and automation. If it’s customer experience, then it’s about AI, chatbots, or omnichannel platforms.

2. Build a stronger IT culture

Even with the best tools and systems, transformation will fail if employees resist change or there’s a lack of collaboration between departments. A strong IT culture means that technology is woven into the company’s DNA.

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Break down silos between IT and business teams. Encourage joint projects, so IT understands business goals, and business teams understand IT’s role.

3. Determine your short and long-term goals

A lot of companies get stuck here because they either try to do everything at once or don’t have a roadmap at all.

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The best approach to defining your goals is to start with business impact. Ask:

What’s the biggest challenge today?
What can we fix in the next 3-6 months?
What foundational work is needed for future updates?

If a company’s biggest pain point is slow customer service response times, a short-term goal might be automating FAQs with an AI chatbot. A long-term goal could be a full AI-driven support system with intelligent ticket routing, self-service portals, and sentiment analysis.

4. Assess existing IT systems

Before making big tech upgrades, it’s important to step back and take stock of what’s already in place. A solid IT assessment helps pinpoint inefficiencies, security risks, and areas that could run more smoothly.

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Here are a few key questions to ask:

Infrastructure: Are on-premise systems slowing things down? Would cloud migration improve performance?
Software & applications: Are there duplicate or underutilized tools? Do current systems support business needs?
Data & integrations: Is data stuck in silos? Can systems communicate efficiently?
Security & compliance: Are there vulnerabilities that put the company at risk?
Performance & costs: Is IT spending optimized, or are resources wasted on outdated tech?

Don’t assume newer is always better. Some companies replace entire systems when a simple upgrade, integration, or automation could have solved the problem.

5. Select the right tools & technologies

Picking the right tool is about making sure it works for your business. The wrong choice can slow things down, create unnecessary complexity, or force costly upgrades down the line.

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To avoid that, here are the key factors to consider:

Business needs first: What problem are we solving? Will this technology actually help meet our short and long-term goals?
Scalability: Can this tool grow with us, or will we outgrow it in two years?
Integration: Does it work with our existing systems, or will we need major custom development?
Security & compliance: Will this solution keep us compliant with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS?
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): What are the long-term costs, including maintenance, training, and licensing?

If you’re looking to overhaul how you build internal tools, a low-code platform like Superblocks (yeah, we’re plugging ourselves) is worth considering. It lets developers and non-engineering teams ship apps in minutes.

6. Implement a security and risk strategy

When companies move to the cloud, adopt automation, or integrate new tools, they’re expanding their attack surface. Suddenly, they have data moving between cloud services, remote employees accessing systems, and multiple third-party integrations.

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If security isn’t built into the process, these changes can create vulnerabilities. Companies should consider implementing strategies like zero-trust security, AI-driven threat detection, MFA, automated audit logs, data backup, and recovery plans.

7. Develop a clear roadmap

Big changes disrupt business operations. Instead of doing everything at once, a smarter approach is a phased rollout that focuses on the most impactful projects first.

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Rank projects based on how impactful the change is on the business, how disruptive it is, and which dependencies it’ll affect.

8. Measure success accurately

Just launching a new system doesn’t mean IT transformation is successful. It must improve efficiency, reduce costs, boost revenue, or enhance customer experience.

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Key performance indicators often include time to market, revenue growth, system uptime, and deployment frequency. IT-specific metrics, such as the number of helpdesk tickets and response time to security threats, also provide valuable insights. Beyond technical performance, businesses should track operational cost savings, employee adoption rates, and customer satisfaction metrics like NPS and CSAT.

How does Superblocks help with IT transformation?

At Superblocks, we simplify internal app development by providing a single, governable layer that connects all your tools. Without this unified approach, IT teams must manage a patchwork of custom applications, shadow IT, and ad-hoc integrations, making governance difficult.

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Superblocks’ easy-to-use app builders and native integrations for all your databases and APIs, make it painless to consolidate your tooling under one platform. Plus, built-in security, centralized access management, logging, and audit trails provide full visibility across your entire ecosystem, making it easier than ever to secure and govern your internal applications.

Real-world examples of IT transformation

A more sustainable development practice is critical because as companies scale, maintaining a suite of DIY internal tools isn't sustainable. Over time, these one-off solutions become technical debt, requiring constant engineering support just to keep them running.

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That’s why more companies are moving to a flexible, platform-based approach. Here’s how some of them made the switch:

Me&u

Before IT transformation, Me&u’s support teams were stuck waiting on engineers just to process refunds, update orders, or edit user details. Their enterprise clients faced the same problem. If they needed to update multiple venues or staff, they had to go through support.

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Me&u centralized these workflows into an easy-to-use UI using Superblocks. This central UI gave support teams direct control over customer data. Select enterprise clients were also granted self-service access that consequently reduced reliance on customer support and freed up engineering resources for higher-value work.

Velocity Global

Velocity Global had customer data spread across multiple systems, making support workflows slow and inefficient. Every time a rep needed client info, they had to manually piece together data from different sources.

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Like Me&U, they built Customer 360 with Superblocks. Their customer management tool pulls in all client data, preferences, past interactions, and support history into a single view. They also integrated OpenAI-powered summaries, so instead of sifting through long records, support teams instantly get key insights

Cortex

Cortex, had already embraced low-code, using Retool to build internal apps. However, the problem they had with it was that it still required developers to step in constantly, making it hard for non-engineering teams to fully adopt the platform.

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Eventually, they moved to Superblocks. One of the key ways Cortex used our platform was to build a customer management app that integrates Postgres, GitHub, and Salesforce. This platform allowed non-engineers to manage accounts independently without dev support. Now, business teams can move faster, and developers can focus on higher-priority projects.

Discover how Superblocks transforms IT

Superblocks brings order to internal app development by providing a centralized, easy-to-use platform to standardize development, enforce compliance, and manage integrations across the enterprise.

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But the best way to see its impact is to try it yourself.

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Here are the key features you can test today:

Over 100 reusable components: Access pre-built, drag-and-drop components that simplify development and enforce a consistent design.
Third-party integrations: Seamlessly integrate with any of your systems. Superblocks works on top of any existing stack, with bi-directional updates to keep data in sync. Plus, it hooks directly into RBAC.
Native integrations: Query any API or database with built-in support for 50+ native integrations, including Airtable, Asana, Slack, and more.‍
Workflow automation: Trigger or schedule workflows and jobs from code or existing services to execute any business logic, all on an infrastructure that scales automatically.‍
Simplified integration with Generative AI models: Easily connect OpenAI APIs with Superblocks UI components and third-party services to build AI-powered internal apps, workflows, or scheduled jobs.‍
Secure and easy-to-manage deployments: Deploy apps on Superblocks or host the OPA agent in your own network to keep sensitive data on-premise.‍
RBAC & centralized governance: Easily manage permissions from one place. Control who can build, access, and deploy jobs, workflows, integrations, and apps.‍
Audit logs & observability: Track user actions and changes from Superblocks or integrate with the observability tools you already use.