Digital Transformation: why every business faces its own unique challenge
For businesses worldwide, digital transformation is now high on the agenda. According to the IDC, business decision-makers only have two years to get a digital transformation strategy in place, otherwise, they risk being left behind by their competitors.
One of the biggest mistakes a business can make is assuming that digital transformation is a box that can be ticked using a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Most businesses have already begun their journey toward digital maturity, but it’s a long and winding path that requires careful navigation to truly reap the benefits and get ahead of the competition.
Each and every business is its own unique entity, with different requirements and goals for digitization. For some, collaboration and productivity will be key, ensuring the workforce has everything it needs to streamline its operations and communicate. For others, digital transformation will be driven purely by customer experience, employing tools such as CRM suites to organize their customer data and better anticipate their needs.
83% of all enterprise workloads will be in the Cloud by 2020, Forbes
This need for an agile, modern workplace has led to a surge in cloud migration. Forbes has predicted that 83% of all enterprise workloads will be in the Cloud by 2020 . Software as a Service (SaaS) kick-started this move, with an increasing number of businesses opting to use subscription-based software that lives in the Cloud without needing to be locally installed, patched, or maintained. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) has also solved the problem of resources for businesses, allowing them to tap into server space and computing power as and when they need it.
While the technology is there and businesses are clearly starting to take advantage, there is no ‘magical blueprint’ for what comes next. Businesses that operate globally have their own set of unique challenges depending on size, geography, headcount, and industry. For some this may be Platform as a Service (PaaS) or SaaS almost exclusively, for others it may be a combination of SaaS and IaaS.
However, there is one common factor that all businesses will need to consider – and that’s their dependency on the integrity of global networks to sustain their business. Getting connected to the Cloud is only the first step in the Digital Transformation journey. Decision-makers should also be able to grant secure and effective connectivity that allows for optimized application performance and user experience.