The Rise of Digital Enterprise

Trends shaping up the Industry Today

The world is going through radical transformation, not that it has not been in this phase earlier, however the pace and rate of change has been something which has been unmatched before. Faster, Easier & Affordable Reach of Network, Infrastructure is bringing about radical changes in the way we behave and operate in this increasingly Networked world.

• The Need to be Connected (Socially or Professionally) without the limitation of distance
• The need to be Increasingly Mobile Individuals and yet being connected.
• The need to have relevant Information around ourselves
• The need to sync our Physical Identities with the Virtual ones

This has also assumed great importance in the Enterprise World, who have been constantly looking at increasing efficiencies with limited resources, driving profitability and Productivity on a continuous scale. During the course of this transition, we are increasingly seeing the development of DIGITAL ENTERPRISES which are highly networked, mobile, integrated and decisive. Organizations, where there is

• Greater Intelligence at the workplace with informed Processes, Infrastructure & Products.
• Mobile & Informed Workforce
• Adaptive, Agile & Scalable Infrastructure
• Networked & Collaborative Environments to boost Productivity
• Transparency and Visibility in everything done
• Instant, Substantive & Accurate Information for effective Decision Making

In this entire scheme of things, Organization will be going through tremendous amount of change and transformation, which includes looking into not only how Infrastructure is deployed and managed, but also how people and process and most importance of it, the mindset needs to be driven across for quicker and smoother adoption. Ways of working will be very different, considering the changes that are shaping up in the day to day workings of an organization such as

• Quicker and Informed Decision Making
• Disappearing boundaries of workspaces
• Building, Managing and Securing Digital Identities
• Increased Visibility & Vigilance of Products across various social/ professional circles
• Deal with highly Informed and Decisive Customers
• Proactive Approach rather than Reactive one

Organizations have to simply adapt to these changes quickly but cautiously, inorder for them to sustain themselves in this dynamic environment, where change is a constant. Creative Destruction will be the new normal with 3Cs (Consolidation, Convergence & Collaboration) occupying an important space in its day to day functioning.

Key Ingredients of a Digital Enterprise

Digital Enterprises of today are actively participating in building SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics & Cloud) model to their existing setup. The advent of the digital age over the past two decades has accelerated the velocity of change in enterprises across the world. The real promise of SMAC technologies is not necessarily their individual contributions or their cost savings and process efficiencies for IT, but their potential to support the continued digitization and automation of business models and processes. According to many, we’re moving into a new “digital industrial revolution”.However the path towards this is not going to be easy until the below Quadrants are being looked at

• VISIBILITY & TRANSPARENCY: to Information across processes, people, products and Infrastructure at large internally aswell as externally
• AVAILABILITY: of Information whenever required.
• INTELLIGENCE: across all critical areas of an enterprise helpful for Decision Making.
• SECURITY: across a constantly changing Business Environment and increasing mobility.

Roadmap for Infrastructure Investments will rely on these 4 critical aspects along with Business Priorities to bring about an integrated and always connected enterprise. Hence, a Connected Enterprise, will be one, which will focus on these 5 areas in the future

1. Mobile Enablement

The rapid adoption of smart devices, both in the workplace and outside, and with it device capabilities are multiplying and changing how individuals and organizations collaborate. It is critical that organizations harness these trends to improve staff productivity and teamwork. In this sense Mobile is crucial. But it is really just the latest stage in a digital journey. It can be thought of in the same sense as the ‘last mile’ issue faced by the fixed line Telco’s. By that I mean we have enabled the digitization of the organization, and now we have to push the delivery of the digitization through that last mile to the end user on their mobile devices. Components critical to drive this journey include the following

• Mobile Apps are critical however their seamless Integration with ERP

It is estimated that Spending on mobile enterprise business apps will more than double from USD 26 billion in 2012 to USD 53 billion in 2017. However, merely deploying standalone mobile apps will not be enough moving in towards a Digital Enterprise. Seamlessly integrating them with Enterprise Application like ERP, or applications, organizations have deployed to integrate their processes; will make an Enterprise realize their true benefits. It’s more about an integrated setup which will Develop Informed People, Processes, Products and Infrastructure.

• Automation cuts across all critical areas of focus

Day in and Day out, there are repetitive tasks done in organizations and with a way of working, there are trends which are generated, which can be really helpful in defining our productivity and efficiency improvements. Although to an extent we have been able to identify and track those processes, however with IOT & M2M at the forefront, we are taking this a level further to track behavioral patterns and way or working to give really minute information which can help to bring about a refined process.

• BYOD

Better availability, accessibility, and mobility of data in a cost saving manner for organizations’ employees is giving options to Organizations to move towards BYOD. Many organizations are adopting BYOD strategy since they recognize that employees have grown up with mobile devices and view these devices as the primary means of connecting, interacting with others, and increasingly using their mobile devices for work-related purposes. We’re seeing dramatic changes in the way users interact with technology on their personal devices and the critical role BYOD plays in transforming business and IT culture.

• MDM (Mobile Device Management), a bare necessity

Deploying the right combination of mobile device management (MDM), mobile application management (MAM) and mobile application development platform (MADP) solutions can help organizations secure and quickly update business apps on employee devices and perform compliance reporting, all while providing employees the flexibility they demand, resulting in improved productivity and higher satisfaction.

 

1. Virtualization, Consolidation reaches to the end user level

Rapid adoption of Applications across Industries and the quantum of them is giving rise to another problem for Organizations to manage, that of, Compute Power. Virtualisation is already making a huge impact on IT, with 2014 seeing dramatically increased use, particularly in Data Center Networks, where it brings several benefits in power consumption, server utilization and application performance. How would organizations continuously transform themselves with new applications and yet be shielded off running out of Compute power, underlying it?

• Moving beyond Server Consolidation to Network & Storage Virtualization

Virtualization has slowly been transforming IT departments for more than a decade now, and the trend of server consolidation is going to continue through the end of this decade. However, the virtualization of network hardware and storage systems is still in its relative infancy and being used by the early adopters in the enterprise space, but as the technology becomes more commonplace and easier to deploy, the next five years will continue to see growth in this area.

• End User Computing Transformation

The need for reduced IT complexity, while deploying a flexible, self-service approach demanded by end-users, has given rise to aggregated delivery models, centralized management and security, and support for a wide variety of endpoint devices. As individual use cases vary, companies will require a multifaceted approach that identifies various end-user profiles and pairs them with the appropriate long-term strategies—including alternative application and desktop delivery models—for achieving ubiquitous accessibility and enhanced end-user experience.

• Convergence of Cloud and Mobile Computing

The convergence of cloud and mobile computing will continue to promote the growth of centrally coordinated applications that can be delivered to any device. “Cloud is the new style of elastically scalable, self-service computing, and both internal applications and external applications will be built on this new style. While network and bandwidth costs may continue to favor apps that use the intelligence and storage of the client device effectively, coordination and management will be based in the cloud.”

In the near term, the focus for cloud/client will be on synchronizing content and application state across multiple devices and addressing application portability across devices. Over time, applications will evolve to support simultaneous use of multiple devices. The second-screen phenomenon today focuses on coordinating television viewing with use of a mobile device. In the future, games and enterprise applications alike will use multiple screens and exploit wearables and other devices to deliver an enhanced experience.

1. Collaborative Work Environments

Building Collaboration as part of day to Day working means Workers on factory, restaurant or retail floors can gain access to information and colleagues they previously had little contact with in real time, enhancing their ability to perform their jobs. The task of integrating Unified Communications into your IT infrastructure will be overwhelming. Video, Email, IM, Conferencing Solutions etc. will be integral part of this alignment. This will mean the following

• Understanding current and future business and end-user collaboration requirements (internally and externally);
• How a mobile strategy impacts collaboration application delivery
• Changing workforce demographics; network readiness
• Delivering a seamless user experience are all key aspects in building a scalable and agile UC solution.

For those organizations that get their mix of devices and collaboration tools right for their business goals, there are huge opportunities to be exploited.

1. Analytics forms part of Day to Day Functioning

It is estimated that a weeks’ worth of New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th Century. It is estimated that 4 exabytes of unique information will be generated this year. That is more than the previous 5000 years. The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.

With the Volume, Velocity & Variety of Data being produced across the following domains, it is creating an analytics revolution which means organizations have enough information at their helm to take decisions, however, how quickly and decisively they take decisions, will determine the success or failure for them in the marketplace. The challenges will lie, that among this huge pile of information, which may be a mix of structured, semi structured and unstructured data, can enterprises be able to realize optimization goals, increase revenue consistently over a period of time.

1. Networks will be Backbone of this journey

Finally and by no means the most critical part of this entire piece is the Network, which will define the capability and maturity levels of organisations initiatives in the above areas. Networks today are becoming cohesive and widely acceptable. Their evolution has been spread across 2 decades now, and today if we look at options, we realize that they actually are based on an Organisations requirement and type. Of the options, MPLS has certainly become a very important and critical component of any Organisations roadmap. Not only that, the capability to provide the QoS, Security and Bandwidth at an affordable cost is driving other areas like Cloud , which sees a perfect mix of combining the flexibility, Cost effectiveness and Scalability features of Cloud clubbed with Security, Reliability and QoS features of the MPLS. With this evolution, we are seeing more and more Mid-Size Enterprises choosing to prefer Public Cloud for their Critical Applications Workloads like an ERP to run on MPLS Network.

Also with the Advent of 4G and in some countries, 5G, this benefit is only going to become bigger and larger to accommodate Data (Voice, Video) and build Collaboration, Analytics and Mobility Solutions that are much more entrenched and fruitful to organization and define the way of working for them in the day to day scenario.

The Rise of a Digital ENTERPRISE

 The apps that exist today and in the near future have the potential for incremental transformation of the organization. But as more businesses take up these liberating applications, as technologies like the Cloud mature to better manage applications and content, and as devices become even more lightweight and robust, we envision the promise of a transformational mobile world in which any and all office activities can be performed from anywhere at any time. An environment in which Organizations have the impetus for changing business practices in a manner that reduces transaction costs throughout, not only on campus but around the world—not unlike re-engineering did 15 years ago. In all it will be DIGITISED WORLD and with them will be DIGITISED Enterprises.