The Changing business through digital transformation, welcome "d!conomy"
Today CEBIT starts in Hannover, and one of the key themes is Digital Transformation, the d!economy. While I hope to meet some of you there - we have plenty of content to watch online. Would be interested in your Point of view, here is mine:
Technology innovation that can deliver real-time data and connectedness enables businesses to adapt quickly to change. Can the same be said for IT? Changing business needs require changing IT focus. Today's decision-makers must become part of the new and evolving digital conversation--or become obsolete. We all need to develop a Point of View on Digital Transformation fast.
As growing digitization and evolving consumer demand rapidly change the marketplace, executives must find new ways to innovate for business advantage. By embracing digital transformation - the use of new technologies like cloud, mobile, Big Data, and social networks - companies can capitalize on new opportunities and optimize existing operations to achieve significant business improvement. But to transform themselves, they must have the right digital assets in place first to protect their own operations from disruption.
It's clear to see that technology is disruptive. This is precisely why we need to talk about digital transformation. Driven by the combination of ever-growing digitization and evolving consumer demands, digital transformation is the use of new technologies to drive significant business improvements. This includes capitalizing on new opportunities as well as effectively transforming existing business. And with this transformation we need to achieve another key goal: to run simple. Because without simplifying, it is just the addition of more and new technology - which as a result creates more complexity.
And especially IT needs to move from the current survival role--which is actually managing the systems, keeping the lights on--to a revenue contributor role. That means tackling new priorities, rethinking strategic purposes, and learning how to speak the new language of business. CIOs who do not keep up will be relegated to purely nonstrategic operations roles. CIOs who embrace change will be able to harness the power of the cloud, free up their time and energy for collaborative pursuits, and find ways to make their company more strategic, flexible and efficient.
When businesses today want to outpace the disruption happening in the market, they need to equip themselves with adequate technology that will help them adapt to change quickly -- and the cloud is the spearhead of that. Organizations must take advantage of the technology available to them and invest
Strong leaders can adopt the vision, culture, business processes and technological investments needed to drive digital transformation. It's a daunting task, but leaders must always remember the end goal: to facilitate a significant change that helps the business find effective ways to serve. The digital transformation must start within.
Much work remains to be done on this front, so you'd better start soon before disruption hits you hard.
Maybe see you in @Cebit15 Hannover, would be interested in your view.
Follow me via @SDenecken and check out our series on Digital Transformation here on ZDNET Digital Transformation Series: The wrap