Digital Engineering: Implanting Change, One Step At A Time

Siva Perubotla

What is the objective of any exercise in engineering? I see it, at its most basic, as problem-solving.

Engineering as problem-solving has been around for decades, with multiple ways of doing it. For example, 40-50 years ago when the aviation industry was starting out, it didn’t have a proper ticketing system.

This was solved a few decades ago using mainframe.In the last decade, the internet boom brought a huge amount of change. It created different channels of reaching customers, yielding varied personas through them. Take for instance, fitness bands which are the rage nowadays; they transmit information to insurers about the health of the individual – a big change from conventional insurance processes. The ways a business can leverage such diverse channels to identify a customer’s persona is where digital comes in.

Assisted by the internet boom, the emergence of digital trends combined with typical engineering problem-solving produce ‘digital engineering’. Today, every business is working towards a shift in IT – from traditional systems to digital processes; it’s not an option anymore but an imperative to stay relevant.

To break it down to its simplest stepping stones, digital engineering must start with the problem, then evaluate all the different ways it can be solved, and finally match the right technology to solve it.

At The Root: Ensuring A Great Customer Experience

Fundamentally, the problem centers on the end-customers and how to provide them a great user experience. This is an engineering problem that has always existed across industries. It could be about ensuring your services are reaching the customer effectively, delivering faster, engaging them throughout the purchase lifecycle, or providing up-to-date channels to reach your services. The ways of doing this are varied.

It used to be mainframe; now, in digital engineering terms, it is about cloud, mobile, different devices, and the Internet of Things. How we think about these new and different ways will define our digital engineering journey.

The Transition to Digital Engineering

All these industries have been thriving for years, with their systems and structures in place. When one decides to embark upon digital transformation, a crucial question is how to leverage the existing long-term capital investments while seeking to build new age systems that support changes?

It doesn’t mean one has to throw away everything invested so far and build anew from scratch. Instead, what organizations largely do is adopt a 'bi-modal IT approach'. With this, their core systems continue to run and keep their business lights on, while there is a newer system of innovation that they start putting together as a parallel layer – this is where all one’s systems are on cloud, are enabled by omnichannel experiences,use the data captured from various channels, and draw insights from this data.

And engineering fits in each of these aspects. One won’t let go of existing core systems because the company’s primary data and source of truth still sit in them, and one has to find ways to make this work with the new. In this bi-modal approach, what is vital is achieving a handshake between the two. Digital engineering comes in the how of building them all together as a mesh of systems that can interface, interact effectively, and exchange data.

Milestones In The Digital Engineering Journey

In my view, a digital engineering journey can be simplified by planning along important milestones.

 Embrace the cloud and new technologies: Look at new technologies which can benefit your business; take the call to get on board with them. A good start is making technological investments to integrate with cloud and create the necessary intersections for data that will prove valuable to your business.

A cultural and organizational acceptance of digital engineering is necessary, and this requires a change in orientation, from the leadership down to each employee.

 Bridge the gap between you and your consumers through omni-channel experiences:Utilize new platforms and forge multiple channels to engage customers. Each channel can create unique touch-points for your customers, addressing diverse needs, be it providing information, sharing feedback, hosting purchase alternatives, or community building. It’s also critical to streamline your omni-channel family into an integrated system even as each platform has its own specificities of technology, type of interface, and data generated.

 Adopt agile and build micro experiences: The best approach is indeed agile, as technologies constantly reinvent themselves.

It becomes especially useful in a bi-modal approach since proofs of concept, innovative prototypes, and beta deployment are done more swiftly. Building towards the larger business vision through impactful micro experiences will ensure sustained, step-by-step progress.

A Holistic Approach Forward

Certainly, digital is not a one-size-fits-all. It isn’t just about providing a software solution to somebody; it has to be engineered to add value. Digital has given us the capabilities to look at problem-solving and engineering solutions holistically.

Going forward, every organization will, of course, have its own approach as it reinvents towards digital. While new trends may emerge, I believe we will continue to see a thrust on making data work to provide business answers, enabling faster sharing, flexibility, and facilitating the best 'experience' for customers.

(Siva Perubotla is Global Delivery Head for Cloud, Digital Operations, Performance & Security at Brillio. Views expressed here are of the author and CyberMedia does not necessarily endorse them.)