Key Trends in Digital Business Transformation

We’re living in interesting times where the pace of change is accelerating. Due to this, every aspect of an enterprise is undergoing a huge change, be it customer support, revenue, new business, operations, etc. The center of all this action is the IT department, so CIOs and IT decision makers need to gear up to support this digital business transformation.

It was on this back-drop that Sumeer Chandra, MD, HP Inc. India delivered his opening keynote address at the Big Switch Forum, a conference for leading enterprise CIOs, held on July 21-22 in Udaipur.

Sumeer elaborated on the key digital business transformation trends and challenges they’ll bring for enterprises, followed by HP Inc’s five pillars that can help enterprises deal with them.

Business Transformation Trends Enterprises Must Watch out for

Sumeer uncovered four mega trends that enterprises need to really gear up for--Digital, Cloud, Mobility, and Security. “These will place an amazing number of challenges and opportunities for the IT department”, he said.

CIOs will have to speed up innovation and provide services faster. They’ll need greater flexibility, as people will come and ask for new types of devices, different types of OS, etc. and CIOs will have to be able to support them. “All this means that you will need to do more for the same IT budget that you have, all while dealing with new age risks associated with the digital world”, he added.

Digital will impact everything, and it’s going to be very different from the Internet boom of the 80s, where people would go to the web seeking information. Sumeer felt that moving forward, the web will come to us on a PC, mobile, cars, appliances, and other devices. “The web will become all pervasive with all devices becoming digital and equal members of a connected world”, he added. These devices will constantly collect real time information and generate enormous amounts of data. This data would have to be analyzed for better decisions, which will not be possible by humans. “Machines will be needed to drive these decisions, which is where AI (Artificial Intelligence) comes in”, he added.

All this will require innovative thinking to bring out new products and services, and a better way to engage to improve workforce efficiency. Digital will also impact customer targeting and engagement for customer acquisition. It will require enterprises to strive for operational excellence in order to deliver an exceptional experience.

Sumeer quoted how HP’s doing some of it at their own physical stores (called HP World), across the country. HP has been experimenting with thermal imaging to see which part of HP World are customers spending more time in in order to understand which products they’re most engaged with. This data can then be used to enhance their experience. “We’re also enabling technologies in these stores where we’ll provide tablets and other form factors devices that customers could use to order products online if they don’t find them in the store”, he said. “This is omni-channel experience”, he added.

HP’s Five Pillars to Smoothen the Digital Journey

Just as the digital shift is happening, HP Inc. has also been gearing up to help enterprises leverage changes to their advantage. “This is really where we differentiate ourselves from being a box provider to being your partner in your digital transformation”, was how Sumeer described this change.

Sumeer described how HP’s five pillars of innovation can help enterprises on their digital journey, all backed by a robust, underlying security framework.

The first pillar is Office of the Future, which allows enterprises to engage their workforce better and help them become more productive. The second pillar is digitization, which is all about moving from paper based to digital workflows. The third pillar is mobility, using which HP could help automate enterprise workflows. “Mobility is not about handing people smartphones, which is what’s happening today. That’s just scratching the surface of mobility”, said Sumeer. Many enterprise workflows will also become mobile and fundamentally transform how business processes are delivered.

3D printing was the fourth pillar that Sumeer talked about. 3D printing will enter mainstream manufacturing soon, and HP Inc. JetFusion technology based 3D printers are well-poised to be used there.

The fifth and last pillar that Sumeer talked about was to deliver IT as a service. He said that just as cars and even furniture are moving to a monthly rental model, why shouldn’t devices follow the same? This is where HP is fully poised to help enterprises manage the complete lifecycle of their devices, right from their commissioning, installation, maintenance, replacement, to disposal.

The foundation of all these five pillars is the promise of end-point security, which has become extremely critical in today’s world. While people tend to put a lot of focus on securing their data centers and applications, it’s the end-point devices like PCs and printers that remain highly vulnerable.

“Our promise to you is to become your digital transformation partner in these five areas”, Sumeer concluded.

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