Finally, they’ve made a Rocky VII. The Rocky storyline is a great metaphor for business. When you’re the small, no-name in the industry, you need talent, determination and grit to get to the next level of success. When you make it big, you can’t afford to get complacent, you need to maintain the eye of the tiger - stay hungry and competitive if you’re going to survive.
The 2015 Gartner Symposium in Orlando, Florida is going to be an epic event. Gartner has structured the agenda around mission-critical priorities and categorized them under six tracks: Renovate the IT Core, Architect the Digital Business, Plan for the Digital Future, Lead the Digital Enterprise, Create a Dynamic Organization and Drive Business Growth. There’s a clear focus on digital transformation, because this is a customer-centric world we’re living in and taking your business digital will be a key factor in your ability to stay competitive and relevant.
If you’re going to launch your business forward into the digital era, there are several components you’ll want to consider.
- Understanding your CEO’s priority business outcomes. Options include:
- Digital marketing capabilities to reach new customers
- A more nimble and empowered field team
- Expansion into new geographies to increase revenues
- Decreased customer wait-times for products/services
- Redesigning your supply chain to reduce costs
- Determining what elements will be needed to build the digital business:
- What capabilities?
- What competencies?
- What technology investments?
- Skills assessment – the best skills for evolving my digital business are:
- Cultural fluency?
- Sales adaptability?
- Social networking?
- Ability to evaluate the success of my digital strategy from:
- A business perspective
- An economic perspective
- A security and risk perspective
- An employee adoption perspective
- A customer engagement perspective
Gartner declares “There is no room to stand on the sidelines, no safe haven to ride out this disruption. Digital will continue to define and redefine business for an entire generation to come.” At the 2015 Gartner Symposium, experts will address questions such as:
- How can you modernize, measure, and manage a mission-critical runtime environment?
- What patterns and practices can you use to deliver scalable, safe and ethical digital business solutions?
- What should be on your 3- or 5-year technology and business radar?
- How do you become a more effective leader in the digital enterprise?
- How can you harness the potential of people and skills to change the culture of your organization and build a digital business?
- How can IT help grow the business, especially through new revenue streams and high-value outcomes?
On top of that, PWC released a 2015 Digital IQ Survey that reveals cybersecurity (69%), private cloud (61%), and data mining and analysis (54%) are the top technologies that companies are investing in this year. However, PWC recommends that companies also consider wearables (3%), NoSQL (6%), and sensors for collecting business information (23%) have extraordinary potential. They say that these three technologies rank last in investment and perceived value, but may be the key to helping some companies become a disruptor.
Gartner always does a great job addressing issues like these and providing perspective. But in many ways, digital is uncharted territory, and your business is a unique ecosystem with specific needs. Trying to understand how all of this information can be leveraged by your company can lead to questions on top of the questions.
Once again, MEGA’s team will be on-site at booth 401 in the Enterprise Architecture Marketplace to provide customized clarity and guidance for your digital journey. Your IT landscape may be complex, but it doesn’t need to be confusing. With visibility and methodologies, you can bring clarity to your ecosystem and understand how to leverage assets and resources to achieve business goals.
