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Digital transformation is not new. We are constantly moving towards an increasingly digital world. But the pace of business transformation had been lagging. Until 2020 happened.
When Dell surveyed more than 4,000 business leaders from 18 countries for its Digital Transformation Index 2020, it found that 80% of the businesses had fast-tracked their digital transformation programs. The uncertainty of Covid-19 disrupted the sluggish pace of business transformation. It ushered in seismic changes, accelerating processes that were supposed to take years into a span of months. Let's look at some of the most transformative industry trends and the growing focus on 'digital infrastructure' as a result.
The pandemic allowed businesses to reap the rewards of a digital-first strategy. Buying online was the only way for consumers when lockdowns worldwide forced the closure of brick-and-mortar stores. This meant that many businesses, to stay competitive, had to shift from B2B to B2C/D2C. Companies that were earlier focused only on product creation and then the distribution channel to reach customers now realize the value of creating unique customer experiences in the D2C space
Cloud has emerged as the single most important enabler of transformation. To capture the real value of embracing a digital-first approach, companies realize they need to focus on building a cloud-ready business model right from the beginning. And establishing the proper governance to manage this new digital infrastructure, including cloud financial management, architecture/configuration consistency, and security compliance, is critical to staying in control.
Notably, we are seeing a shift to a hybrid cloud ecosystem for high-data growth enterprises looking to achieve digital success.
We have seen that as more AI-driven data insights come into play, the technical complexity of transformation has also increased.
Businesses are becoming more SaaS-oriented because of this complexity. This is the future of digital infrastructure, and the AI-powered applications ecosystem will only evolve even more over the next few months.
As with the shift to D2C, we are seeing a shift toward building more customer-facing infrastructure. Previously, digital infrastructure was never linked to business outcomes. But what we are seeing now is that businesses understand the importance of how this infrastructure enabled by cloud can and does influence business outcomes. With devices becoming smarter, enterprises are adopting edge computing to bring computing services closer to consumers or data sources.
Today, most businesses realize the necessity of becoming digital-first and modernizing their business profile. Technology is no longer an option but a fundamental imperative that must be built into business strategies. The era of technology infrastructure being utilized behind the scenes for cost leverage is behind us.
The success of the digital-native business model and the opportunities created by the ongoing disruption has pushed infrastructure to the front-line influencing business outcomes, revenue impact, and customer experience transformation. This is where 'digital infrastructure' comes in. It is not just about migrating to the cloud here and there. It is all-encompassing, transforming every aspect of infrastructure from connectivity, servers, data, cybersecurity, applications, and platforms to become more agile, intelligent, and scalable. It embodies cloud-based transformation across the infrastructure ecosystem powered by AI-driven data analytics.
While businesses must go digital, it is important to understand the challenges before charting the infrastructure transformation roadmap.
It's well known that legacy systems are a barrier to seamless digital transformation. And yes, legacy systems can be unwieldy, cumbersome, and resistant to change. But that's not all.
What we are also seeing is that culture is also one of the biggest challenges to digital transformation. Technology transformation is tough, but people transformation can be tougher! People change management scaling can often be left out when considering an overhaul of legacy technology debt.
Technology readiness, therefore, becomes so important: you may adopt digital, but if your dependent technology stack is not ready in terms of people, processes, and automation, you may not get the results you were looking for.
When you consider digital business transformation, you must understand that it is essentially business transformation and outcome transformation powered by IT transformation. IT can no longer function in a silo, cut off from the rest of the organization.
Bringing people together – CIO organization, people outside of the IT organization, and shadow IT teams has become critical for sustainable digital benefits. For example, think about how IT can help the finance team leverage a new way of financial modelling using SaaS and reduce their turnaround time
Post-Covid, the number of cyber security attacks has risen dramatically. This is because access points are way more: people are working from home, and devices are exposed across multiple locations.
Now, when you add an enterprise trying to move to the cloud, you add to the complexity of your overall landscape. Therefore, businesses realize that they need to embed cybersecurity right from the beginning – when thinking of digital business infrastructure and defining the right architecture from then on. A defined cybersecurity strategy, therefore, becomes a must.
Cloud is often associated with buzzwords like agility and speed and flexibility. Not quite a phrase like a lock-in. But cloud vendor lock-ins and associated security concerns are often some of the biggest stumbling blocks to moving businesses to the cloud. The entire innovation ecosystem of a business can get restricted to one hyperscaler's products and services.
Getting stuck with a single vendor or architecture limits possibilities and is a pressing concern for organizations on their digital business transformation journey.
Digital infrastructure is changing the way we live and experience work. This digital infrastructure, we have seen, can result in product enhancements, customer experiences, and subsequent business benefits. But what's important to realize is that digital transformation is a journey, and it's progressive – it takes ongoing attempts to get it right. Technology's pace is so dynamic that you keep learning, obtaining more flexibility as you move step by step on this journey. Being agile and flexible while responding to newer challenges are all part of the process.
For seamless digital business transformation, the recommended approach to move ahead is:
These last 1.5 years have shown businesses the power of digital adoption. Accelerating digital transformation and encouraging technology adoption through a landscape of innovation will offer enterprises incredible results. These results, we are confident, will stay long after the pandemic's dramatic influence has receded.
Ashok Philipose, Chief Delivery Officer, CSS Corp
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