AI readiness is a top enterprise priority – here’s how the channel can help

AI readiness has become a critical business goal. Recent research from IDC found that IT budgets currently flex to earmark an average of 25-30% for IT modernization, and the top priority of these projects is to become AI-ready at an infrastructural level within the next two years.

Despite these targets, delays and hidden problems can often emerge, preventing enterprises from unlocking true return on investment (ROI). Fragmented data, infrastructural blind spots, and outdated governance procedures consistently rank as the top impediment to success.

There is critical work to be done at the infrastructural level so organizations can set themselves up for future success. As a valuable conduit between vendors and businesses, the channel plays a crucial role in this process.

Partners are uniquely positioned to leverage their market knowledge and help enterprises create a foundation for their AI initiatives to thrive. From data governance to fresh KPIs and regional compliance, enterprises can only benefit from specialist advice from channel partners.

Creating the foundation

Any AI initiative can only be as effective as the data it has access to. With data generated globally expected to exceed 394 zettabytes by 2028, the real need is not more data but contextualized data that is visible to the right applications.

The majority of enterprises house their data across mainframes, cloud platforms, and distributed environments, meaning that the likelihood of blind spots is high. This reality presents an opportunity for channel partners to work with their clients and assess how accessible and synchronised their data really is.

A poorly architected environment with data silos can disrupt automated processes, delay decision-making, and create operational inefficiencies. While isolated pockets of data may serve local purposes, they impede visibility and ease of access, especially for enterprises with extensive historical data. This can become a serious hindrance if not managed properly, making expert channel-partner guidance on data strategy critical for AI success.

Data is the foundation for all modernization initiatives. Enterprises want their most secure and reliable data to fuel their AI projects, and they need to understand their data in order to leverage it for their business analytics. Good quality data, coupled with a rigorous data management strategy, is the foundation for innovation.

Channel partners can ease this process for their clients by guiding them to the best vendor for their modernization needs. Data management strategies are not one-size-fits-all, so having the right partner is critical for success. As businesses seek tailored solutions at every stage of modernization, channel-partner expertise becomes critical.

By working together, enterprises can address disconnected formats, transform rigid data pipelines, and eliminate silos. This will ensure consistent data quality, security, and accessibility across workloads and systems, as data management systems maintain data privacy, compliance, and security across the data life cycle.

Rethinking KPIs for data cleanliness 

For optimal long-term results, organizations must set specific high-priority KPIs to ensure the data fuelling their AI initiatives remains clean and meaningful. Many enterprises in the early stages of their modernization journeys may struggle to identify meaningful internal metrics that serve as indicators of success.

Focusing on the wrong KPIs risks the derailment of their initiatives before they begin. Moreover, by tackling modernization requirements on a project-specific basis, the big picture can get lost, and enterprises forfeit significant business outcome improvements.

Channel partners who build long-lasting relationships with their clients are in the best position to guide them towards setting KPIs that prioritize investments and document the longer-term ROI relating to these efforts. Organizations with high levels of IT modernization maturity often prioritize data quality and cleanliness as a KPI.

These IT modernization-specific goals can then be correlated to larger business KPIs as the level of maturity increases, becoming central to future budget discussions.

Analysis has shown that IT modernization experts at the highest level of maturity typically experience twice the levels of improvement compared to the least mature organizations.

Partners familiar with their clients’ specific business needs will be best positioned to help them chart their modernization journey and direct their focus to the right metrics.

Operational resilience and data protection at the heart of compliance 

Global compliance frameworks have evolved into foundational regulations that propel business evolution. Amidst rising cyber threats, data protection lies at the heart of regulations like the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and the EU AI Act.

As businesses race to implement AI solutions, setting guardrails around the data that fuels the AI is critical to protect sensitive information, particularly in highly regulated sectors such as financial services and healthcare.

Data management and cybersecurity are closely related and are central to compliance frameworks. As AI initiatives bring new risk factors around data privacy, the need to maintain visibility into data lineage and provenance grows.

Channel partners with deep regional expertise can guide global enterprises through local compliance requirements as they prepare for AI adoption, and can also help clients with already mature IT environments prepare for what’s next, including quantum-resistant cryptography and confidential computing.

Without timely, high-quality, and contextually aligned data, supported by a resilient and mature IT environment, meaningful AI integration will not succeed. The channel is uniquely positioned to offer tailored guidance on how enterprises can achieve their goals and become AI-ready.

Implementing new technologies is always a calculated risk, but channel partners can harness their market expertise to ease the way for clients by offering region-specific advice that meets compliance standards, promotes operational resilience, and prepares the enterprise for unlocking the true power of AI.