“Digital transformation” has become a buzzword in the business world. But beneath the hype lies a profound change that has been reshaping industries and redefining the way enterprises operate for decades. And while a lot has changed since the early mainframe computer days of the 1960s, including the massive disruption to traditional business models beginning in the late 1990s, we’re still in the midst of this seismic shift.
Teridion’s solutions simplify network management and provide real-time visibility into network performance, identifying and addressing potential issues before they arise to ensure seamless connectivity and business continuity.
What Is Enterprise Digital Transformation and Why Is It Important for Business?
Many IT folks mistakenly assume that digital transformation is just about adopting the latest technologies. A better way to view digital transformation is as a holistic process that requires reorienting organizational culture, customer-centric thinking, and a willingness to embrace change. Just look at how traditional business models are being challenged by the rise of digital platforms, allowing companies to offer new products, services, and revenue streams. Subscription-based models and on-demand services have fundamentally altered industries like entertainment (Netflix), transportation (Uber), and retail (Amazon). And the rise of AI will continue transforming these industries, and others, in both predictable and unpredictable ways.
Operational processes are another area undergoing significant transformation. Automation, data analytics, and cloud computing are streamlining workflows, reducing costs, and enhancing efficiency. Companies are leveraging these technologies to optimize supply chain management, enable remote work, and facilitate real-time decision-making based on data-driven insights.
However, perhaps the most crucial aspect of enterprise digital transformation is the enhancement of customer experiences. In our digital age customers expect seamless, personalized, and omnichannel experiences. Companies are adopting technologies such as chatbots and augmented reality to deliver exceptional customer service, personalized recommendations, and immersive shopping experiences.
Benefits of Enterprise Digital Transformation
Data-Driven Decision Making and Profitability
By harnessing the power of analytics and business intelligence tools, organizations can gain valuable insights into customer behavior, market trends, and operational efficiency. This data-driven approach enables businesses to make strategic decisions based on real-time data analysis, rather than relying on intuition or outdated information. That means enterprises can optimize their processes, allocate resources more effectively, and identify new revenue streams, ultimately leading to increased profitability and a competitive edge.
Detailed Customer Insights and Better Customer Experience
Digital transformation equips enterprises with the tools to collect and analyze vast amounts of customer data, such as preferences, browsing patterns, and purchase histories. Leveraging this data helps businesses develop a comprehensive understanding of their customers’ needs and pain points, tailoring products, services, and marketing campaigns. This level of customization not only enhances customer satisfaction but also fosters loyalty and long-term relationships, driving business growth and success.
Flexibility
Digital transformation enables enterprises to embrace a flexible and scalable infrastructure that can respond swiftly to market shifts, regulatory changes, and evolving customer demands. Cloud computing, for instance, offers on-demand access to computing resources, enabling businesses to scale up or down as needed, without significant capital investments.
Enhanced Collaboration and Improved Productivity
Cloud-based productivity suites, video conferencing, and instant messaging enable real-time sharing of information, so work teams can collaborate more closely and efficiently, even if they’re not in the same location. Additionally, automation and process optimization streamline routine tasks, freeing up valuable time for employees to focus on higher-value activities.
Operational Resilience
Digital technologies such as network connectivity optimization help enterprises enhance their operational resilience and ensure business continuity in the face of disruptions or crises. Robust cybersecurity measures safeguard against cyber threats, protecting sensitive data and minimizing the risk of breaches or downtime. This operational resilience enables businesses to maintain uninterrupted service delivery, mitigate risks, and adapt to unforeseen circumstances, ensuring long-term sustainability and success.
Naturally, the pace and scope of digital transformation will be different based on factors such as industry and company size. Here are some indications that your enterprise may need to ramp up its efforts or risk falling behind:
If a significant portion of your employees operate remotely or engage in frequent travel; If you’re noticing a growing demand from your customer base for smoother digital journeys; Or if your organization is facing challenges with legacy systems, inflexible infrastructure, or high operational costs, migrating to cloud solutions through digital transformation could be a strategic move to enhance efficiency, agility, and long-term competitiveness.
Network connectivity today is like electricity—fundamentally necessary for running the modern world…but it’s risky to assume that networking technology will evolve at an optimal rate for enterprise growth needs on its own. Enterprises must take proactive measures.
Digital Transformation Roadmap
While we still have a long way to go in advancing digital transformation across the globe, lots of ground has already been covered and common collective challenges have emerged. Resistance to change is the least digital among them, but perhaps one of the hardest to control for.
Employees may resist adopting new technologies and processes due to fear of the unknown, including a lack of digital skills. Another common pitfall includes integrating legacy systems, which can easily be derailed if not properly planned or budgeted. Lastly, digital transformation often involves increased connectivity and data sharing, which can expose organizations to cybersecurity threats.
Below is a framework to help you prepare for the challenges ahead. As this is a comprehensive list, start by defining which digital tools your company needs to reach its business goals. Not every company will need to incorporate the framework in its entirety.
Robust Infrastructure and Architecture
Creating a robust digital infrastructure and architecture is crucial for supporting transformation initiatives. This includes:
- Scalable and flexible cloud computing solutions to accommodate increasing data and workloads.
- Modernizing legacy systems and embracing microservices or containerization for better agility and scalability.
- Implementing robust data management and analytics platforms to derive insights from data.
- Leveraging agile methodologies and DevOps practices for faster innovation and deployment cycles.
Deployment in Phases
Digital transformation is a complex and multifaceted process. Deploying initiatives in phases can help manage risks, ensure smoother transitions, and allow for course corrections. A phased approach may involve:
- Prioritizing initiatives based on business impact and feasibility.
- Starting with pilot projects to test and refine solutions before broader rollouts.
- Implementing changes in stages, allowing for gradual adoption and integration across the organization.
- Continuously monitoring and adjusting based on feedback and lessons learned.
Mitigating Challenges and Risks
Identifying common obstacles and challenges encountered during digital transformation is crucial for proactive risk management. Strategies for mitigating risks and ensuring smooth implementation may include:
- Conducting thorough risk assessments and developing contingency plans, including for network resilience to avoid costly and brand-damaging downtime.
- Establishing clear governance structures and decision-making processes.
- Ensuring data privacy and compliance with relevant regulations.
- Partnering with experienced consultants or vendors for guidance and support.
Great Internal Communication
Effective internal communication is essential for driving digital transformation success. This involves:
- Establishing a culture of innovation and continuous improvement through leadership support and employee engagement.
- Emphasizing the importance of cultural shift and organizational change management to facilitate adoption and buy-in.
- Keeping stakeholders informed and aligned through regular updates, training sessions, and feedback channels.
- Celebrating successes and sharing best practices to reinforce positive change.
- Having great network connectivity so that your online meetings don’t turn into a glitchy, productivity-killing nightmare.
Measuring ROI
Measuring success metrics and KPIs is crucial for tracking the impact of digital transformation efforts and demonstrating the value delivered. This may include:
- Defining clear and measurable goals aligned with business objectives.
- Tracking operational efficiency gains, cost savings, and revenue growth.
- Monitoring customer satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty metrics.
- Assessing improvements in employee productivity, collaboration, and innovation.
- Continuously reviewing and adjusting KPIs to align with evolving business needs.
Upcoming Opportunities
To thrive in the digital age and maintain a competitive edge, organizations must embrace an agile and adaptable mindset. This involves continuously monitoring and adapting to emerging technologies and trends, such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain. By staying informed and proactively exploring these advancements, companies can identify potential opportunities or threats and adjust their strategies accordingly.
Additionally, leveraging partnerships, acquisitions, and strategic alliances can provide organizations with access to new capabilities, markets, and resources that complement their existing strengths. These collaborations can facilitate knowledge sharing, accelerate innovation, and open doors to untapped growth opportunities.
Though they’re not always equipped to handle it, IT teams are typically tasked with maintaining strong network resilience within an organization. This includes establishing best practices and taking proactive steps to prevent costly network outages that can significantly impact operations.
Digital Enterprise Transformation Solutions
Network connectivity today is like electricity—fundamentally necessary for running the modern world. So whether your business is integrating AI, IoT, cloud computing, or big data analytics, all these advanced technologies require reliable, high-performance networks. It’s risky to assume, however, that networking technology will evolve at an optimal rate for enterprise growth needs on its own. Enterprises must take proactive measures.
In fact, according to McKinsey, robust network infrastructure lays the groundwork for successful digital transformation initiatives. Organizations that actively prioritize network resilience are significantly more likely to achieve their digital strategy goals effectively, by a staggering 85%.
Different underlying reasons affect connectivity disruptions, but network congestion is a key factor. While more of the world’s population is gaining online access at a rapid pace, the internet’s core protocols, TCP/IP and BGP, have largely remained unchanged. These protocols were designed for reliability and stability rather than optimizing for network congestion. TCP/IP governs how data is transmitted over the internet, while BGP handles routing decisions between networks. Neither offers dynamic mechanisms to detect and adapt to real-time traffic conditions.
And network congestion is just one cause of connectivity disruptions. Bad peering agreements, regulatory compliance issues, software and hardware glitches, increasingly extreme weather events, and cyber attacks are all contributors.
Though they’re not always equipped to handle it, maintaining strong network resilience within an organization typically falls on the IT teams. They are responsible for establishing best practices and taking proactive steps to ensure that networks can reliably support digital transformation.
Teridion’s cloud-based networking solution plays a pivotal role in optimizing network performance, enhancing reliability, and accelerating cloud applications. Teridion’s AI-powered Network as a Service is the only fully managed platform that leverages over 25 public cloud providers and a global network of 500+ Points of Presence (PoPs) to optimally route traffic over the internet.
By dynamically selecting the best network paths, Teridion’s Network as a Service solution mitigates the impact of network congestion, latency, and packet loss, resulting in improved application performance and user experience. This is particularly beneficial for organizations that rely heavily on cloud-based applications, such as software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms, video conferencing tools, and collaboration suites. Moreover, Teridion’s solutions simplify network management and provide real-time visibility into network performance, identifying and addressing potential issues before they arise to ensure seamless connectivity and business continuity.
Integrating Teridion’s cloud-based networking solutions into their digital transformation strategies, makes it simple for enterprises to optimize their network infrastructure, enhance the performance and reliability of cloud applications, and ultimately drive operational efficiency and productivity gains, without driving their IT teams crazy.
Great Examples of Enterprise Digital Transformation
Check out some of these Teridion case studies to see how enterprises are using Teridion’s solutions to accelerate their digital transformation.
Thru, an enterprise-grade file sharing and collaboration tool, with clients that include Dell, Bayer, Carnival, and ABinBev, faced a connectivity challenge with slow customer performance in parts of Asia, risking sales loss. Teridion’s Internet overlay network offered a solution by intelligently routing traffic over the Internet Backbone, resulting insignificantly faster upload time, a better global customer experience, and significant cost savings.
Accucam, a full-service components supplier for a diverse range of industries, with clients that include Volvo and John Deere, faced connectivity challenges in its China-based manufacturing plant due to the Great Firewall. Teridion’s China solution provided a high-performance, compliant connection, replacing traditional routing protocols and resulting in a reliable, stable, and fast IPsec-based international internet connection to significantly improved connectivity between Accucam’s global facilities.
From manufacturing, to finance, to e-commerce, more and more industries are relying on Teridion for high-performance global connectivity.
