Business technology can be the great enabler that differentiates an enterprise from their mainstream peer group. Make no mistake, delivering digital business value at scale can be achieved. The essential change management process begins with fearlessly embarking on a bold initiative.
Granted, implementation has many steps and takes time. In fact, successful business transformations can take several years to complete. According to Boston Consulting Group (BCG) latest research findings, they require drawing on three key enablers: ensuring C-Suite alignment, developing the necessary capabilities, and maintaining always-on execution.
Executive leaders that establish these key enablers will scale digital business solutions successfully, and also embed digital transformation approaches and ways of working into their operating models. They will becomes the established market leaders in their sector to benefit from superior value creation.
Leveraging Cloud Computing Services for Digital Growth
To power their scaling of digital solutions, leaders use public cloud computing services, which serves as a technological foundation for building and expanding other enablers, such as data. Most leaders (64 percent) design solutions to be 'cloud native' so that they can host every new digital solution right away.
BCG consultants noted that savvy leaders deploy these solutions in a layered architecture connected with APIs and, often, employing two or more cloud platforms. A multi-cloud approach delivers a number of key benefits, including increased agility, greater flexibility, higher innovation rates, and the ability to deploy modern technology and platform strengths from various providers.
This approach decouples digital delivery from legacy systems, which in turn enables easier testing, deployment, and maintenance. Digital innovation leaders also reduce the costs of digital scaling.
By 2025, BCG believes that up to 60 percent of consumer-facing applications, almost 40 percent of data warehouse and analytics workloads, and more than 30 percent of core business applications will be running on public cloud services that hyperscalers operate.
More than 90 percent of forward-thinking business leaders can connect digital solutions to their tech stacks, which are API ready and use microservices. In contrast, 80 percent of the sector laggards still rely on tightly coupled legacy IT systems with complex interfaces.
Three factors make the cloud transition a digital business growth driver:
- The cloud permits instant scaling of tech capacity (infrastructure, storage, and processing).
- Solutions provided by cloud service providers (CSPs) usually include the latest cybersecurity mechanisms and patches.
- CSPs have the expertise and people -- both of which are in short supply -- to customize solutions for clients efficiently.