When talking about digitalisation, people expect that one is referring to topics such as  artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, automation, the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) and quantum computing.

Although these technologies are important and can help to speed up digital transformation to radically change business processes, customer relationships, culture and customer experience, I firmly believe that most companies cannot capitalise on digitalisation, because the basic building blocks are not in place.

In the rest of the article, I will explain the fundamental technologies that companies should have in place and optimised, to gear up for digitalisation.

Cloud-based technologies

Cloud-based technologies have made data collection accessible to more enterprises, increasing their capacity and enabling enterprises to avoid extensive IT infrastructure and unwieldy maintenance routines.

These technologies ensure that enterprises remain agile and manage scale more efficiently, while consumption-based models have encouraged faster growth of as-a-service systems that offers smaller enterprises access to tools that were too expensive before.

Containerisation

Containerisation involves bundling an application together with all of its related configuration files, libraries and dependencies required to run in an efficient and bug-free way across different computing environments, such as Docker and Kubernetes.

Containers are often compared to Virtual Machines (VMs), since both allow multiple types of software to be run in contained environments. While containers are an abstraction of the application layer, VMs are an abstraction of the hardware layer. Containerisation has done for compute and DevOps what Software Defined (SD) has done for the network and edge computing environments.  The future of optimisating infrastructure and increasing precision in decision-making is SD.

Connectivity and the move to SD-WAN

Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) offers the benefits of SD networking and can dramatically impact the entire enterprise networking ecosystem. Geographic boundaries are erased and key benefits, such as visibility, scalability, performance and control, are enhanced. The primary advantage of SD-WAN is security because all devices and endpoints are completely authenticated, thanks to a scalable key-exchange functionality and software-defined security.

The evolution of Cybersecurity in the Digital Age

Cybersecurity is always changing as it evolves, but building out a strong cybersecurity bench requires long-term strategic planning, creative recruitment and collaboration between training institutions, service providers and business.

With a continuous increase in cybersecurity hacks, it important to link into a strong partner that updates these aspects and stays ahead of the curve. Enterprises cannot afford to be reactive anymore or duplicate all the necessary investments of a SOC/SIEM partner.

Mobilty

The interactive user experience can be improved through various other options, such as website and CRM, but ignoring mobile may not be a fruitful strategy in the long term, as everyone on earth is embrcacing mobile. Mobile is the vanguard of the enhanced digital experience enterprises want to provide to customers.

The demand for superior offering through innovative technology to beat the digitally evolving competition is the primary driver of transformation. This can be achieved when enterprises target optimisation and standaridation of their omni-channel engagement points.  Mobile will play a crucial role here through various technologies.

Applications and App Development

According to a research report from Dynatrance, software is transforming every enterprise into a software business. The way enterprises interact with customers, assure quality experiences and optimise revenues is driven by applications and the hybrid, multi-cloud environments underpinning them.

Success or failure comes down to the software supporting these efforts. The pressure of this “run-the-business” software performing properly has significant ramifications for IT professionals, with 44% of CIOs fearing there could be a threat to the existence of their business if they are unable to manage IT performance and 74% that it could soon become extremely difficult to manage performance efficiently.

It is important for digital transformation to cloudify legacy software and applications through app modernisation partners.

Artificial Intelligence and Automation

AI still has a long way to go, although it already represents a formidable technological advance that amplifies, accelerates and expands all technologies. Enterprises can use AI for sales process recommendation and automation, fraud analysis and investigation, automation of written or scan documents through OCR, programme advisors and recommendation systems, diagnostics and treatment systems and quality management investigation and recommendation systems.

In addition, many enterprises worldwide are turning to automation to complete a variety of tasks, such as using robots to complete dangerous and time consuming tasks in factories. AI is speeding up automation by adding capabilities to robots (through RPA technologies) and is now employed to act as automated customer service agents, threat intelligence and preventions systems, preventive maintenance, intelligent processing and IT automation.

Please contact us at BCX, should you need a discussion with a partner to take you on your digital transformation journey.