Achieve ‘digital escape velocity’ in 2017
The beginning of a new year is a great time to take a look back on your successes of the past 12 months. Naturally, it’s also a time to look forward to what lays ahead for the enterprise in 2017.
The next stage of digitalisation
The digitalisation trend continued to advance in 2016. According to Gartner’s CIO Agenda Survey, CIOs are spending 18 per cent of their budget in support of digitalisation, a figure expected to increase to 28 per cent by 2018*. Moreover, digitalisation has fundamentally changed the way the whole IT department fits into an organisation’s operations. Rather than simply just an order-taker, the IT department itself has become a transformative tool that redefines how operations are managed and improved.
Increasing Complexity
New technology requirements will mean increased complexity for CIOs who need to incorporate the new technology with existing systems. We imagine that facing the complexity challenge will become a top CIO priority as companies undergo digital transformation projects. 2017 will also most likely see more enterprises change their IT operating model. APIs and microservices will be key assets that IT teams build for developers across the organisation and will be used to build new apps, services and processes**.
Will you be “digital ecosystem ready” in 2017?
Being ready to reap the performance benefits of digital transformation and the subsequent “digital ecosystem” therefore involves preparation across the enterprise — again raising the stakes for CIOs. Top performers like Amazon, Netflix, Uber and Spotify, have shown that amazing things can be achieved quickly once “digital escape velocity” is achieved: Their digitalisation efforts become so fast compared to their peers that they escape their influence and move swiftly ahead to realise new goals. Insights from the 2017 Gartner CIO Agenda Report suggest they’ve done this by demonstrating a 360 approach in three critical areas, which provide food for thought for other organisations looking to overtake or maintain their lead:
- Their technology infrastructure prioritizes interoperability.
- Their IT organisation has a more external mindset.
- Their business leadership is more focused on mastering interdependence.
A digital ecosystem is an independent group of actors (enterprises, people, things) sharing standardised digital platforms to achieve a mutually beneficial purpose. Different ecosystems can coexist if separated by geography, market or category.
Every industry is affected by digital transformation, and companies are trying to develop strategies in order to cope. All these trends above require IT to evolve to think and operate differently in order to move faster than ever before. Is your organisation prepared for what’s to come in 2017?
*Gartner CIO Agenda Survey http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3481117 ** 2017 – The year business agility takes a leap forward, Ross Mason http://www.itproportal.com/features/2017-the-year-business-agility-takes-a-leap-forward/
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