Businesses that look to the future in any vertical are actively working to improve efficiencies, minimize risk, and optimize productivity. These companies are taking measures to disrupt the status quo and win in the digital economy. Simply put, let’s do things more simply, securely, and quickly.

A growing number of reports such as “The State of Digital Transformation, 2018-2019” explore and provide an insight into how IT decision makers are currently prioritizing on-premise and cloud computing, mobility, and security initiatives in order to drive business results and engage customers, employees, and partners. They highlight the greatest challenges and opportunities for enterprises as they prepare to make the shift to digital infrastructure business.

Why transform instead of maintaining the status quo?

Key benefits provide the edge that you need to thrive in today’s competitive environment. Easily configurable, easy-to-use business applications improve processes and workflows, increasing productivity. You can transform your business by rapidly designing and implementing applications which streamline processes, empower mobile workers, and gain critical insight into business trends. This progress will facilitate making better business decisions. A study by Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work found that businesses that automate are reducing costs by a minimum 15% year over year.

Companies of all sizes and types agree that in order to succeed they must do everything possible to interact with employees and customers alike, wherever they are. To do this, they must utilize a digital experience via every available connection, from PC to laptop, tablet to smart phone. The majority of IT decision makers define the transition to the digital environment as being able to engage employees and customers via smart, connected devices (IoT). The transition can be realized by utilizing cloud services, on-premise servers and, where possible, migrating to infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

Infrastructure for Content Management

According to Forbes, 77% of enterprises have at least one application or a portion of their enterprise computing infrastructure in the cloud. Enterprises invested on average $3.5 million on the cloud last year. Security remains the number one concern and is seen as the greatest barrier to cloud migration. Solutions that can embrace hybrid infrastructures, meeting the complex levels of security required, address this area of concern and set the foundation for digital solutions environments.

The rush to implement cloud services on infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and replace legacy employee software with SaaS Apps is proceeding at a very cautious and guarded pace. However, it is clear that IT decision makers have set these objectives as real priorities at significant levels of importance.

Even with all the major tech companies driving this forward and opening up possibilities, we’re still only beginning to realize how the cloud will transform the way we conduct business. In the coming years, security, identity management, and flexibility will remain the greatest challenges and opportunities for succeeding in a digital solution world.

The Complete Transformation

During this transition period, solutions must be able to operate within both conventional and hybrid configurations and be able to transition as operational environments evolve. A typical example of a current operational environment is one where customers or members of the public access your organization’s website, review options, and complete an on-line form, or purchase. Before submitting they may well need to attach supporting files/documents. Once submitted, the form and supporting documents are automatically filed, indexed, and entered into a workflow process. They then appear on the dashboard of the employee(s) designated for action. During the subsequent path the document takes through the business process, any supporting documentation (comments, validations, clarifications, and emails) all need to be added to the original document. This creates a comprehensive repository and history of the transaction for collaboration, later reference, and compliance.

At any time, senior members of management can monitor and audit the process to see what is happening and identify necessary improvements. All of the organization’s data must be fully secured at all times and automatically system managed, with version/revision, retention, and auto-notifications. Data mining can also be accomplished by defining the focus, locating the relevant documents/related data, and then submitting the results set for analysis. Together with standardized reporting, these results can provide statistical and operational insight to redefine strategies, policies, SEO and marketing activities, which in turn redefine the customer facing assets of the organization.

A version of this article was published as Are Business Digital Transformations Really Important?  by Joe Wharram on February 28th, 2017.