By Keri Gilder, Chief Commercial Officer, Colt Technology Services
Enterprises of all shapes and sizes are embarking
on their own individual digital transformation journeys, and no two are alike.
That's because digital transformation affects every part of the organization,
and ultimately, it is geared towards meeting individual customer needs across a
wide spectrum of requirements. With so many ways to transform an organization,
how do enterprises know if they're on the right track?
The cloud plays a critical role in digital
transformation - this is in part because the flexibility, and productivity that
the cloud offers makes it such an important enabler of change. So, whether the
goal is to move all enterprise data into a multi-cloud environment - at one end
of the digital transformation spectrum - or gradually migrate data into the
cloud at the other, digital transformation is inextricably linked with cloud
adoption.
Wherever you look, cloud adoption is the glue
that is holding enterprise transformation strategies together and making them
work. The numbers back that too. According to the Cisco Global Cloud Index, by
2021, 94% of workloads and compute instances will be processed by cloud data
centres, an astonishing turnaround from five years ago when enterprise data was
strictly on-prem and managed in-house.
For enterprises, it's now
long past the question of if they'll move to the cloud, but, to what extent and
when. Cost is also no longer seen as the main driver. They've seen their
competitors move to the cloud, they've seen their customers move, and now
they're making their own move.
The challenges are
therefore now associated with the fact that every digital transformation is
different, and so how can organizations establish a common understanding around
what to shift to the cloud and when, and whether they're making the correct
move?
As is the case with any evolution, it's often
helpful to think of digital transformation as a process, as enterprises evolve.
These are the three stages of cloud migration that we most commonly see, as
enterprises progress through their digital transformation journeys.
- Stage one: technology-centric - Improving and consolidating data and processes
is a good starting point that cloud technology can help solve very quickly. For
example, an American multinational chemical corporation in need of data-driven
insights to sustain success in mature markets and to drive growth in emerging
markets.
- Stage two: service-centric innovation - Choosing to focus on improving the service
and customer experience while using the latest technology, is the second stage
of innovation. An example of this is a big retail chain who developed an
enterprise blockchain to guarantee traceability in the food chain, this allows
both the building of more confidence and also the increasing of consumer
loyalty; also resulting in strengthening of partnerships with quality suppliers
by providing added services and visibility.
- Stage three: shifting gears in operating
business models - This is the ultimate step of digital transformation, the one that
digital-first businesses have already embraced. This is where cultural change
and the attraction of talent comes into play; and where cloud technologies can
be the most disruptive, from using crowdsourcing instead of in-house R&D.
Or, for example, when a big car manufacturer develops an entire new concept of
community transport to optimize the connection between personal transportation
modes and public transportation, which only the cloud allows.
These three examples are incredibly different,
but highlight the simple fact that no enterprises digital transformation is
going to look the same. They also highlight that hoping for a ‘one size fits
all' cloud migration strategy is not going to be effective if you really want
to drive value for your organization.
Despite the complexity, we
all know that in the simplest context, the future of business is going to be
done in, and driven by, the cloud. So, then it is vital to work with
organizations who can not only facilitate your agile, on-demand connections to
the cloud, but also ones that can guide you along your digital transformation
journey - whatever stage you're at.
##
About the Author
Keri Gilder is Chief Commercial Officer,
Colt Technology Services, where she is responsible for driving Colt's
commercial strategy, leading global teams across sales, presales and marketing,
as well as working closely with the wider organisation to ensure Colt delivers
on its vision of being the most customer oriented business in the industry.
Keri joined Colt in September 2018 from Ciena Communications, where
she held several senior sales leadership roles in the business, most recently
as VP & General Manager - EMEA, as well as being responsible for SubSea
Global Business Development. With a background as an engineer and network architect,
Keri is a respected leader who can also be credited with founding a global
internal networking initiative at Ciena, that aimed to encourage diversity
through motivating and inspiring women at all levels, to attract, develop and
retain talent.