Do organizations that have mastered cloud computing have an easier
time advancing into the digital realm? Is digital enterprise even
possible without cloud computing? It’s very likely that cloud paves the
way to the digital enterprise, but don’t expect overnight transformation
as a result of cloud. Digital enterprise, associated with the design,
development and delivery of innovative products and services through
online channels, is the result of a long, multi-year journey that
includes cloud computing as a vital component.
That’s the word from Saugatuck Technology, which just released two
new reports that explore the connection between digital enterprise
initiatives and cloud computing. Business and IT leaders still have
plenty of work ahead of them — even if they are well along in their
cloud implementations, says Saugatuck Technology analyst Mike West in a
recent post. As West observes, “the foundation of digital business is
the boundary-free enterprise, which is made possible by an array of
time- and location-independent computing capabilities – cloud, mobile,
social and data analytics plus sensors and APIs.” However, he cautions,
“there are no shortcuts” to the digital enterprise.
With its inherent ability scale, as well as providing immediate,
on-demand access to the latest solutions and approaches, cloud provides
ready-to-deploy environments for creating and delivering the innovative
business strategies and products that are part of digital enterprise.
It’s not that companies aren’t already working hard to reach digital
nirvana. A separate Saugatuck survey of 203 enterprises finds at least
60 percent are now creating and delivering new digital products and
services to customers, and nearly 70 percent are enhancing or updating
traditional products and services as a digital experience. Most
organizations are still in the early stages of their digitization
efforts, but Saugatuck expects digital enterprises to accelerate over
the next three to five years. For purposes of its research, Saugatuck
defines digital enterprise as a broad sweep of a category that includes
driving revenue and creating customer value through innovative business
strategies, products, processes and interactive experiences.
“Enterprises are still very early in the lifecycle of digital
business, with much left to learn and experience regarding how it is
accomplished, and how its success is measured,” says Saugatuck
analyst Bruce Guptill.
The evolution of digital enterprises will track very closely to that
of hybridized cloud IT and business environments, Guptill predicts. The
main challenge on the road to digital enterprise is that cloud
capabilities themselves are also just starting to take hold in
enterprises. Only 29 percent of the companies in the Saugatuck survey
say that most of their IT infrastructure and applications portfolio now
reside in the cloud — but this is a number likely to increase to 63
percent over the next few years.
The ability to effectively deploy cloud will shape the speed at which
enterprises go digital. Digital business success depends on “the
availability and utility of increasingly powerful and flexible
cloud-enabled, and cloud-delivered, technology and business services,”
Guptill states. As cloud takes hold, so will digital business, he says.
“As that occurs, business buyers, users, managers and leaders, along
with developers and IT leaders will be pushed to ‘up their games’ in
terms of digital business, he continues, noting that digital enterprise
will develop in a pattern similar to Software as a Service adoption —
“from the outside (systems of engagement) toward the inside (systems of
record).”
A majority of executives in the survey, 57 percent, says they are
leveraging the cloud to create new revenue-producing products and
services — up from 42 percent a year ago. Perhaps the learning and
experience now coming out of cloud as SaaS projects is the single best
asset for the next stage of evolution to the digital business.
Found on Evan Vitale Blog
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