The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has confirmed that businesses need three strengths to navigate shocks and gain competitive advantage: intelligent, agile, resilient.
Digital transformation and the flexibility provided by a cloud technology architecture can help build these strengths. With tech-savvy firms outperforming their peers during the crisis, it is unsurprising that many more are planning to accelerate their switch to digital over the next two years.
Getting to Basics
Though the adoption of hybrid cloud approaches will benefit businesses in the long-term, the increasing rate of digital adoption is putting pressure on existing IT applications and strategies.
Organizations are smoothing the transition by using traditional process improvement techniques such as business process reengineering. Embracing native cloud services for artificial intelligence, automation and machine learning are also essential, in addition to developing a cloud-first strategy.
Clear Vision Creates Competitive Advantage
Despite the fact that digital technology has come a long way, even technologically-savvy organizations still struggle to adapt.
To succeed, organizations must have a clarity of vision and create an open hybrid cloud architecture that has agility and encourages developer productivity.
Security is Paramount
In moving applications to the cloud, enterprises may also be faced with another challenge – data security. Large organizations need to comply with data privacy regulations all over the world. Thus, security is “top of mind” for company executives planning a move to the cloud.
As technology is ever-evolving, digital transformation will be an ongoing process. Technologies like confidential, distributed and edge computing are set to unlock a new wave of innovation – and the businesses that ride the wave will be poised for success.
Research reveals that within the next two years, it is predicted that 500 million new digital apps and services will be created. That is about the same number as have been created over the past four decades.
This transformation has only been accelerated by the pandemic. Application modernization is a priority for 67 percent of organizations. As customer expectations and behavior continue to evolve rapidly, efficiency and security become even more important.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed crumbling legacy systems running outdated programming languages and unsupported software. 59% of companies report that the pandemic sped up their digital transformations as executives sought continuity and efficiencies.
The number of connected devices per square kilometer is set to balloon from 4,000 under 4G networks to 1 million with 5G.
Cloud Solutions Give Businesses an Advantage
Organizations that leverage cloud technology as a platform to build and innovate across the full development lifecycle will have a growth advantage.
To survive and thrive in a post-pandemic environment, organizations will need to continue on the digital transformation journey and become more streamlined, more agile, and more resilient.
Modernization is the Future
Those that do modernize see real benefits. There are cost and efficiency gains. But it brings significant changes to business speed, innovation, and performance, too. New features can be delivered faster, the developer experience is enhanced, and the organizational mindset shifts to become future-ready.