The Digital Rush

Digital….the big daddy of enterprise computing is at the center of all things. Traditional IT is sunsetting as radical new models powered by on demand is completely changing the taxonomy of enterprise IT and consumption patterns. As we all know Digital today is an oft-repeated term and often times we struggle to find one definition that satisfies all.

A report by PwC titled- What ‘digital’ really means, Karel Dörner and David Edelman sometime back puts things in perspective. They aptly said, “ Digital in the context of IT is focused on creating a two-part environment that decouples legacy systems—which support critical functions and run at a slower pace—from those that support fast-moving, often customer-facing interactions.

A key feature of digitized IT is the commitment to building networks that connect devices, objects, and people. This approach is embodied in a continuous-delivery model where cross-functional IT teams automate systems and optimize processes to be able to release and iterate on software quickly.”

Quips T.G.Dhandapani, Advisor - Digital Transformation and Former Group CIO, TVS Motor and Sundaram Clayton Group, says, “Going digital means many to many organizations. From simple transparency to a strategic new line of business. It means better customer service, faster time to market, better customer connect, Smart manufacturing, good employee relations, agile supply chain, absolute compliance, faster delivery, defect-free, empowerment and one can add many.”

Agrees Vimal Mani, CISO, Bank Of Sharjah, “Delivering much-improved end to end services is what digital ushers in. I strongly consider blockchain technology to be a technology juggernaut that is going to transform the financial services sector by increasing transaction efficiency, transparency and security while reducing costs.

Through the distributed ledger mechanism, blockchain technology will eliminate the need to have intermediaries for the end-to-end trading process. This will certainly attract investment banks as it will help them reduce the costs involved in the trading process and significantly increase transaction speed.”

So clearly emerging tech is no longer rhetoric IT Organizations across the world over the year were rather compelled to revisit their technology architectures and  ink a bold new strategy aimed at meshing IT with the new normal digital economy business demands. One saw transformation events like legacy modernization, infusing agile methodologies like DevOps in the software development lifecycle, leveraging big data and unbundling ‘On-Prem’ and moving to an ‘on demand regime’- all these topped the agenda of technology decision makers across the world.

THE DIGITAL ECONOMY POWERED BY APPS

While the brick and mortar to online transition happened a few years back, what is happening right now is the beginning of what some companies call as ‘Application Economy’. In an earlier interview with Dataquest early last year, Bask Iyer, CIO of VMware told that ‘every business has the potential to be ‘Uberized’ right now. In a way, it indicates how computing, as we know now is going to undergo a fundamental transition from current Enterprise 2.0 to a completely new demand scenario.

Two things are happening here. One is on the disruption happening on the supply side and the other is on the demand side. The CXOs, on the one hand, are grappling with digital transformation challenges and expect the vendors to address those challenges. On the other hand, the vendors are caught in the nexus of forces and invested in staying relevant to the demand side.

Overall the outsourcing global delivery models are on the threshold of a major transformation, while they embark on creating a digital backbone- whether it be hardware or software, it needs to be agile and elastic  enough for this transition. One of the biggest challenge,  as well as an opportunity for ISVs, relate to the shrinking of packaged software deployment slice. Increasingly CIOs opted for a Cloud model and decreased their ‘On-Prem’ IT investments.

Meanwhile, on the distribution side, the creation of a seamless omni-channel ecosystem is the key. So the  biggest challenge here related to creating a balance between brick and mortar channel vs online retailing.

A DIGITAL ROADMAP

Moreover, experts say that Digital transformation is at the core of all businesses across industries. From a technology standpoint, most clients cannot make an immediate clean sheet of paper transition to a digital technology backbone. Clients will typically build a digital architecture on top of their legacy technology and the integration between these two layers is a very critical part of the transformation. A new broader set of capabilities is required to help clients navigate the digital transition.

In line, the enterprises during FY 19 are expected to take a multi-pronged strategy in which they will blend their traditional  strength areas with the new thinking, powered by Digital. One of the significant areas that are gaining traction by the day is Automation. Most of the enterprises are taking on to a platform based intelligent automation approach. Clearly, all the major CIOs we spoke on this issue are exploring ways and means to reap benefits out of digital and going ahead with full steam.

So FY 19 is all about - Go Digital or Perish!

DATAQUEST DIGITAL LEADERS 2018