7 trends driving enterprise IT transformation in 2017

Digital transformation continues to be the goal for global brands and government agencies in 2017. We believe our customers will also look at their business operations from a perspective where agility, speed of service, and the ability to deliver an outstanding end-user experience will be the ultimate goal.

Organizations will need to examine all areas of their business operations to see where IT spend can most effectively be deployed. Yet they will also need to be deliberate about the challenges of security and compliance, and how best to integrate new technologies. Success will come for those organizations that are best able to meet the challenges of the digital transformation journey. Understanding what those challenges are up front is key.

Verizon Enterprise Solutions, with its focus on global enterprises and the government sector, sees the following seven trends driving digital enterprise IT transformation in 2017:

1. It’s time to transform your network.
   Enterprise software defined networks (SDN) will come of age, as organizations recognize the value of intelligent orchestration to allow applications or workloads to access resources in an on-demand, elastic, pay-as-you-go fashion. It’s all about delivering a multi-modal experience, with networks built from the perspective of customer service, and delivering the stuff that people need right now as they want it, and how they want it.
2. Make user experience your priority, and you’ll win.
   It’s the cumulative effect of technology on the end user that matters most, not the individual steps in the technology chain. The idea is to build a corporate experience that has a consumer feel – the end user doesn’t care how it happens, but rather what the technology does for them. IT teams that really understand how the business works will be best placed to make this happen.
3. Get compliant.
   Incoming data protection legislation means non-compliance is not an option for global business. It’s no longer about compliance as best practice, but rather compliance as law. The expertise to achieve this will be at a premium as the skills gap continues to grow.
4. Security matters, inside and out.
   Security remains a key challenge, but the focus is no longer solely on safeguarding the perimeter, or even the app, but rather protecting key assets against the bad guy/girl or guys/girls sitting in your office. Investment in security analytics and cyber intelligence will help mitigate against the insider threat.
5. Disrupt from inside and you will do stuff faster.
   What businesses really want is to reduce the time it takes to get from plan to output. It doesn’t matter who does what— the focus will be on removing barriers that inhibit an organization’s speed to respond to change and to drive innovation. Suppliers that can focus on delivering the end game as an ecosystem partner, outside the traditional IT boundaries, will win the day.
6. IoT stands for the Internet of Transformation.
   The IoT focus will not be on the ‘thing’, but on its potential for transformation. It’s all about how IoT drives supply chain convergence, transforms processes and revolutionizes operating models - the practical application, not the theory. This means looking at what can be achieved through multidimensional data analytics. If you’re focused solely on location, catch up to 2017.
7. Real-world thinking will make or break your business.
   IT spend will be determined by how important the user function, data or application is to the business and this importance will be prioritized by the business itself.  Given that all things are not equal in IT, the reality is that it’s more important to keep payroll and the supply chain in motion than human resources and marketing, and how businesses classify these constituent parts will define how much focus the IT department will give them. For any organization that doesn’t realize this, CIO will quickly mean ‘Career is Over.’

“The digital transformation journey is complex,” said George Fischer, president, Verizon Enterprise Solutions. “But it’s absolutely imperative - and most organizations around the world are keen to find trusted advisors with domain knowledge and specific execution skills in this field. This is where Verizon comes in. Our customers understand that we ‘get’ their business, as we are a global business ourselves.

They count on us not just for our technology know-how, but also for our experience in culture and process change. We know what’s on their mind, as it’s on our mind too – and it’s this knowledge and real-life experience that we bring to bear every year when we outline our view on enterprise technology trends. These are all areas that we know our customers are focusing on – and it’s our job to use our experience of working globally, at scale, to help them define their digital transformation pathway.”