As executives demand their businesses be “digitally transformed,” CIOs and IT managers are diving under the table. After all, digital transformation means “making IT responsible for running the business”.
With all eyes on him, and the pressure to produce new ways to excite customers, streamline production and provide real-time information to decision makers, what should a technology manager do?
Seven key technology areas
First of all, he must understand that this means more than just a technological repair. “The mainstreaming of a specific set of technology innovations and practices has enabled companies to transform their businesses through greater automation and data intelligence, to achieve greater business value and growth,” write Thomas Erl and Roger Stoffers in their latest book, A Field Guide to Digital Transformation.
In particular, seven key technology areas need to be considered as part of any digital transformation initiative, say the authors.
Thomas Erl, CEO of Arcitura Education, is one of the most prolific authors in the field of enterprise technologies. He is well known for his work on service design principles and patterns. Roger Stoffers is an enterprise architect for the Volksbank.
What are the priorities to apply?
Here are the key technology drivers that the authors believe should be part of a digital transformation:
Improved and diversified data collection. “By having a wide range of input data, digital transformation platforms can offer human decision-makers deeply insightful data intelligence to improve their decision-making capabilities and help them discover how to introduce new innovations. in terms of products and services,” according to the authors. The availability of a wide variety of data sources also helps decision makers “achieve very sophisticated and intelligent forms of automation that can improve both the quality and efficiency of business automation.” Relevant technologies: big data and analytics, internet of things (IoT) and robotic process automation (RPA).
A contemporary data science. “Advances in contemporary data science are what have propelled the automation of digital transformation in many organizations, as their automation solutions can now be powered by constant streams of intelligent data that delivers real value. » Relevant technologies: big data and analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
Sophisticated automation technology. “Bots can be configured to perform a range of convenient processing tasks, such as data entry and information routing. » Relevant technology: RPA.
Autonomous decision making. “This allows the solution to respond quickly to a range of situations that previously might have required more time for correct human decisions to be made. » Relevant technology: AI.
Centralized, scalable and resilient computing resources. “Cloud-based environments can provide the infrastructure needed to meet the performance requirements of digital transformation. » Relevant technology: cloud computing.
Immutable data storage. “The highly secure storage technology that has emerged from the use of cryptocurrencies has made it possible to position immutable repositories alongside corporate databases. » Relevant technology: blockchain.
Pervasive multi-experience access. This is to open access to “a range of commercial interaction options for the channels that the customer can choose. The client’s activity state is always preserved across the different types of access methods. » Relevant technology: cloud computing.
Source: ZDNet.com