Extra tags: Business StrategiesDigital Transformation
By Praveen Kumar, Senior Vice President & GM – Asia Pacific & Japan at Rocket Software
Businesses are seeing a sharp increase in data production year over year, while the number of places data is stored grows exponentially. According to IDC, Asia Pacific's spend on big data and analytics solutions (BDA) is expected to grow by 19 percent in 2022. At the same time, the total supply from centres grew by 488MW to more than 8700MW. This explosion of data and the ways we protect data comes in combination with constant changes in the market—economic, technological, and shifts in buyer behaviour, to name a few. Such an unpredictable landscape makes a strong data infrastructure an imperative so that businesses can maintain uninterrupted focus on their pursuits of goals and returns on investment (ROI).
Some of the toughest challenges that companies face involve long data access times; unable to get data from the required sources; not being able to interpret or summarize all of the data; and not being able to find the required information. All these challenges disrupt the growth of ROI, the pursuit of business goals, and the optimal use of employee time.
The good news is that, with the right infrastructure, you can not only survive, but thrive under these conditions. Businesses positioned for success have equipped themselves with quick data access, automated and surgical data recovery, scalability as their data storage compounds annually, and SLA compliance—all foundational in this era of growing data needs.
Core Tenets of Successful Modernization
Staying competitive in today's landscape requires businesses to increase efficiency in their operations. Efficiency impacts many aspects of the organization, including revenue, customer service, brand reputation, and many others. Meeting this goal requires IT and business leaders to work closely together to modernize their operations and set the organization up for success. While there is no one-size-fits-all strategy in modernization, there are three key themes that are crucial to every journey.
1. Streamlining your tech stack
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations have been implementing tools to help workers with their remote working experience. IDC reported that ICT spending is expected to grow to USD1.04 trillion and will continue to grow to USD1.21 trillion by 2025. While digital tools are critical for growth, they can lead to lost revenue if businesses do not deploy them effectively. Business and IT leaders should work together to gain full visibility of the solutions in their tech stack and how each of them can work in your organization's favour. This does not mean abandoning core infrastructure like mainframes and servers, as it is not feasible or necessary for success. Instead, organizations should adopt a hybrid approach that integrates both legacy and new technologies to ensure the best possible performance for their operations.
2. Bridging employees and technology
When modernizing data, organizations should focus on optimizing employee workflows. Automating certain tasks allows employees to gain insights faster, so they can focus innovating and driving the businesses forward. Organizations should also consider creating user-friendly interfaces that allow non-skilled employees to interact with the system easily. Doing that will allow employees to tap into a larger talent pool to fill the tech skills gap. Investing in user-friendly interfaces also shortens the time taken for IT experts to provide support, allowing other departments to complete their work on time.
3. Modernizing is a journey, not a destination
Technology is always evolving, and organizations should stay up to date with the latest innovations that can help them thrive in the competitive market. This again highlights the need for business leaders to work together with IT experts to identify new solutions that will benefit their organization. With organizations becoming more focused on digital solutions and remote work becoming the norm, IT should be the focus of any modernization strategy.
The Right Solution for Modernization
It’s crucial to work with an industry leader who specializes in advanced and scalable solutions. It’s very important that legacy doesn’t constrain the business development due to the technology or lack of skills or lack of adequate resources. Simplification, combined with ability to interface with multiple technologies and provision of a platform to provide quick response to business needs has to be part of the solution. It’s also crucial that your industry leader is a strong partner who maximizes your value and prioritizes your success. The right solution should also enable automation, support to open source, surgical data recovery, mitigating the impact on business operations and ensure SLAs are not violated. Industries should also be equipped with solutions that offer to manage their data health, backup or archive (including cloud), and data recovery.
