Why IT teams resist change—and how to overcome it

Despite mounting evidence that change is good—necessary, even, IT teams continue to rely on underperforming software and solutions. And this resistance to change is costing IT teams more than they realize. We're talking about higher costs, inefficiencies, and even security risks.  

Let's take a look at the reasons why IT sticks with problematic tools and processes and how to overcome these challenges to find opportunities to drive efficiency, lower costs, and better security. 

Why IT teams stay with tools and processes that no longer meet needs 

IT teams often avoid change due to fear and uncertainty: 

• Fear of failure and the comfort of status quo. Sometimes people put up with existing problems simply because it’s “the devil you know.” In other words, they might think they're better off sticking with a problematic situation rather than risk doing something new that is unknown over fears it could turn out worse. 
   
• Avoiding the discomfort that comes with instituting changes. Whether it’s learning a new skill or technology, or the disruption you will experience, change is difficult and requires a different level of effort—and this can be scary or discouraging.  
   
• Concerns surrounding migrations. Tech migrations often spark anxiety on fear of failure, and potential costly downtime, IT disruption, and unforeseen expenses. 
   
• Difficulty articulating what the benefits will be. If the proverbial “pot at the end of the rainbow” is ambiguous, it can be hard to justify making the leap to something new.   
   
• Pain points have dulled and don’t seem like problems anymore. Workarounds help us adapt to challenges in the short term, but they can blind us to the need for real change. Over time, these temporary fixes can lead to bigger risks. 
   
• Relationships and trust that have been built over time. Even the techiest of tech purchases are influenced by the relationships built between sellers and customers. Like fear of the unknown, customers might worry about working with a new team, and this uncertainty alone might lead them to stick with a legacy solution.  
   
• Sunk costs. Sunk costs, an economics concept, refers to past expenses and investments that cannot be recovered. In tech terms, it describes a prior solution you’ve purchased, or a tech stack your team has already built. While it’s a natural human response to hold onto these investments, failing to face the facts can keep your team in the red. 

For all these reasons, initiating change may feel daunting. But small problems can easily grow into big problems. Therefore, change becomes non-negotiable. 

Overcoming fear: How to advocate for IT change 

To begin the process of evaluating new solutions that better suit your business needs, it’s important to take a structured approach, documenting the challenges and opportunities.  

1. Articulate and clarify the need 

The first step to solving a problem is admitting that it exists. When thinking about current problems affecting your IT team or the organization at large, here are some areas to consider: 

• Inefficient processes, especially leading to high turnaround times or long MTTRs
• Difficulty hiring or staffing to needs
• A growing pile of requests that aren’t getting attention
• Ongoing focus on repetitive manual tasks while never getting to strategic initiatives
• Rising or unpredictable costs
• Low satisfaction levels, from IT teams or the larger organization
• Downtime and other detractors to productivity 

It’s important to note that these challenges are often interconnected. For example: rising technology costs can eat into your budget, affecting the ability to hire or staff projects, thus resulting in a backlog, which can affect experience.  It’s critical that you note challenges but also consider dependencies versus sources so that you can identify and seek out new solutions that can truly address the core issues. 

2. Create the context for effectively evaluating vendors and solutions 

Research shows that there are often three or more stakeholders involved in making tech purchase decisions. Increasingly these include non-technical roles such as Employee Experience and Onboarding teams from HR. Beyond collecting purely technical or operational stats, it’s important to understand more human-centric organizational needs and seek out solutions that support holistic improvements. 

3. Provide business justification, showing a structured plan of action with target KPIs  

The final hump in getting approval often comes down to a single idea: show me the money. As was true in the iconic scene in Jerry Maguire, decisions can be made quickly and confidently when accompanied by solid evidence of financial benefits.  

When it comes demonstrating the impact of making a change in your tech provider, the Omnissa Value Realization team highlights three areas to consider: 

• Hard benefits: Quantifiable benefits that are tangible, amortizable, and often found on a balance sheet. Examples include: eliminating license, network, and infrastructure costs associated with third-party vendors; and reducing the labor cost of support associated with managing current solutions.
• Soft benefits: Quantifiable benefits that are not typically balance-sheet items and are often operational. Examples include: reducing time spent on operations; improving IT efficiency; reducing employee loss of productivity (downtime); and improving employee productivity with new workspace capabilities such as mobility and BYO devices.   
• Strategic benefits: Qualitative benefits that are intangible but typically broad in impact. Examples include: improving the employee experience, enhancing security, reducing risk, boosting IT agility, and providing insights that help drive innovation. 

Be bold: Resources to help you initiate change 

Change takes courage, but the rewards—greater efficiency, happier teams, and a future-ready IT system—are worth it. The time to act is now. 

Need help? 

• Our ebook, Fearless VDI Transformation, offers more details on initiating a change to your virtual desktops and apps management solution
• Take our Readiness Assessment to understand how prepared you are to address common VDI threats and risks
• This blog post describes how Omnissa has made it easier to migrate from Citrix to Horizon
• View the Value Realization datasheet for resources and tools that support a value-centric approach to assessing an EUC platform