In this competitive world, it is always better to build a powerful ecosystem with new innovative features or capabilities — powered by new technologies to create intelligent, agile and efficient operations and experiences. And to become an Intelligent Enterprise, there is indeed a need of Business Transformation.
Business Transformation is a change management strategy which has the aim to align People, Process and Technology initiatives of an organization closely with its business strategy and vision to stay market relevant. Change Management strategy can be any shift, realignment or fundamental change in business operations for multiple reasons – e.g., new or disruptive technologies, shifts within the market requirement, low profit and turnover, or a merger and acquisition.
There is a common proverb – “Change is the only constant thing in this world”. Current service-oriented economy is mainly depending upon cloud computing. Below simple example of cloud computing can justify the above proverb and that too with the speed.
It’s interesting one. In last 4 years, as per Gartner report, no. of players in Cloud Infrastructure as a Service area are consolidated to few organizations.
But in my opinion, if you see in detail – then you will find a remarkable fact about VMware. Let’s see – what it is (and these are the announcement made by the other players):
VMware Cloud on AWS is now available for purchase directly through AWS and the AWS Partners(APN) in the AWS Solution Provider Program.
One can run native VMware environments at scale in the cloud with Microsoft Azure VMware Solutions – fully verified and supported by VMware.
Google Cloud VMware solution will leverage VMware Cloud Foundation, which includes VMware vSphere, vSAN and NSX, deployed as a service and managed by CloudSimple, a VMware Cloud Verified partner.
Alibaba Cloud will now offer VMware’s hybrid cloud software stack on its cloud infrastructure.
Oracle and VMware have announced their collaboration to help VMware customers run their deployments on Oracle’s cloud without rearchitecting applications or operations.
Earlier, all the Cloud providers, e.g. AWS, Azure, Oracle, etc. leveraged their own or preferred technology only for the virtualized solution. Now due to strategic purposes, their stance had been changed – all of them embracing VMware and all are happening in last 2-3 years span.
So, in a nut-shell, in this dynamic business world, CIO/CTOs need to re-think their strategic purpose time-to-time within the organization and then start a journey to achieve this strategic purpose. Even business-to-business companies must rethink themselves as business-to-business-to-consumer enterprises, which essentially means understanding their customer’s customers. It is necessary to survive in the everything-as-a-service economy.
And the customer’s requirement or demand is also changing – that too with speed. The millennials-who are digital natives, will comprise nearly by 75% of the workforce by 2020. The current generation grew up with technology around them and they are highly connected, social and always mobile. The digital-first customer expects smart, connected products that are continuously being improved with new functionality.
Today, businesses realize the need for change, transformation and innovation in order to avoid disruption. And that a rapid state of change mainly requires on three pillars within an organization:
People
Process
Technology
People : It is the most important part of any transformation as workforce is the heart for any organization. People is the key driver for the culture of a business. Any kind of transformation requires the change of the mindset of people – and it is essential but relatively difficult job to perform. This can be done in three ways: Proper communication, Training/Development and Empowerment. Communication should be crystal clear across all levels of the organization to avoid confusion and ambiguity. Proper learning and development opportunities are essential for skills progression need to develop new ways to empower employees and offer opportunities to grow within the organization. As the transformation is not happening in a day, better to cultivate these unique skills and ensure these team members are on board for the long haul.
Process : When comparing with earlier decades, we are living in tech-era; disruptive technology product or services forced to change our way of living. For obvious reasons, businesses are also looking for ways to leverage new opportunities to improve their business, whether it’s a move to a private/public or hybrid cloud-based system or automating certain processes. Apart from earlier supported offline models, such as call centers and physical office/store locations – utilization of self-service digital mediums, such as mobiles, websites, email, social media – increased and popularized day-by-day. And to support this – organization needs full-proof processes for providing integrated and frictionless customer experiences, regardless of the channel.
Technology : Technology changes the most during last 10-20 years due to disruptive innovations in hardware and software industries. Earlier enterprises prefer on-premise model and everything in their own control. Replacing legacy systems and infrastructure with modern technology stacks to change the way products and services are consumed, such as moving from on-premises to cloud-based models. Big data, real-time data and corresponding analysis is highly required for making prompt business decisions. Also, evolution of mobile & social media – also trigger changes from monolithic system to micro service-based approach.
At first – define business target and corporate objectives according to your business; do necessary scope analysis. Make a proper execution plan to achieve business objectives – align people and process. Create a robust platform to ease business execution by using appropriate technology or product.
But when someone wants to stich the above together, it is very important to understand that “People” plays a pivotal role here which leads to success; even after implementation of proper processes and technologies, sometimes it can go wrong just because of absence of adequate mindset and attitude of the people.On that context, 5R principle must be followed:
Along with Right processes and technologies in place, Right people should be there in Right place, Right time and with Right decisive power.
If the above is working perfectly, then the next target/focus should be how to influence the customer experience along with reaching towards operational excellence.
As per an article published in 2018 on based of survey result among enterprises, from the MIT Sloan Management Review, “Becoming future-ready requires changing the enterprise on two dimensions — customer experience and operational efficiency.”
As in today’s world, mostly all businesses focused on Digital Transformation – and for that, necessary framework really helps to achieve digital customer experience and operational excellence.
Intelligent enterprises turn insight into action, to win in the experience economy. But how?
You need data about the interactions that people have with your products or services and your business. You need data about their experiences. Experience data captures beliefs, emotions, opinions, perceptions.
Intelligent enterprises must connect experiences with operations – using the both, experience and operational data to guide their business decisions, and to sense opportunities, risks and trends.
Operational Data (O data) tells you what happens and Experience Data (X data) tells you why it happens. SAP infuses Intelligence between these two and that’s why easily help Business users, who can take right decision at right point in time.
SAP is always there to help Intelligent enterprises turn insight into action across the business, to close the experience gap, unlock new sources of growth, and lead in their industry.
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