Digital transformation is really not an option, it is mandatory in the world we live in today – driven primarily by the way products and services are put together and then consumed by the end-users. In the last one year alone, the industry has seen a major acceleration in transformation to digital products, services and platforms; as the pandemic changed the way we live, work and do business.
A recent study by Deloitte showed that digital-first companies were 64% more likely than their peers to have exceeded their financial goals.
Unfortunately, the most important reason why Digital Transformation has been so hard to accomplish is because most CIOs execute on digital technology transformation when its actually about comprehensive end-to-end digital mastery.
The key building blocks, for true digital maturity are typically:
- Data Mastery: finding and understanding the right data to monetize products and solutions competitively, increase operational efficiency, drive revenue and retain customers.
- Digital Information Exchange: delivering all aspects of product collateral and training digitally via documentation and videos while also using AR where application for service and maintenance.
- Smart Ecosystem Engagement: collaborative work with internal and external partners, logistics and CRM tools and the multitier supply chain.
- Agile & Intelligent Workflows: continuous data driven optimization of human and machine capabilities, capacities and redundancies for business continuity.
- Customer Experience Management: delivering a consistent environment (portal customized for their needs) for all customers whether they are internal, partners or end-users.
- Business Model Adaptability: consistent monitoring and quickly adapting to change in any global condition that potentially impacts the business.
One look at the list above and it quickly becomes obvious on how dynamic the environment has to be and how much everything is dependent on the network, the systems, the data collected and stored, and the global connectivity for real-time access to applications and data.
Thus, to make this all happen one needs an underlying network infrastructure that is expandable, scalable and secure. Effectively deploying a hybrid multicloud strategy is more critical than ever for today’s business challenges. One common theme across any line of business is that there really no boundary – globally distributed work force, sales partners, or supply chain accessing legacy as well as cloud/SaaS applications and workloads round the clock 24×7!
Typical challenges faced in setting up and maintaining such a global network are unreliable and lack of guarantees from backbone networks, traffic congestion arising from external sources, cost management on an on-going basis and last-mile connectivity for the users.
To counter these challenges, IT teams are deploying a variety of tools to monitor their network environments which in turn is exponentially increasing the amounts of data that has to be parsed. The end result is a greatly increased complexity in keeping the system in a good operational state, and many times is the main cause for significant delays in identifying and solving issues.
Change is constant:
- Data itself used to making decisions and operational adjustments
- Add, move and changes to applications, services and hosted locations
- User and profile changes, what they access and changes to their authorization
- IT Admin role and team function changes, who is assigned the task to fix an issue
- Use of new tools and/or inheritance of the same due to mergers and acquisitions
Security and insights associated with security are an added layer of value but that also involves constant change. Complying with ‘zero trust’ initiatives in the industry, the ability to secure the access and the network itself is not enough. Real time analysis of access associated with the security posture of the device used and the context – what data was accessed and from where and how did it vary compared to the previous session are critical for protecting the precious data.
Navigating through these changes on a regular basis while maintaining or exceeding customer experience, business agility and positive financial impact is now a reality with AIOps. Continuous multi-dimensional observability and correlation of data is key for the ML engine to evolve over time and increase its accuracy for root cause identification and mean time to resolve reducing down-time and as such loss of revenue.
There is no such thing as ‘done’, this is indeed a journey and the ride is guaranteed to deliver more determinism in digital operations each day!
