By Nadir Khenak, Cloud Network’s CEO
Todays challenge
Business and technology are in harmony. Organizations seeking business agility and growth in 2022 and beyond will be those that achieve convergence across all parts of the business and the technologies that underpin operations. This will be achieved through five factors of accelerated change:
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Technology investments that suit the hybrid technology environment
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Emphasis on software engineering and platforms to run the business
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Strong data metabolism to generate insights and streamline tasks
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Continued and meaningful focus on people
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Continued and meaningful focus on the environment
The events of the pandemic delivered a near-instant harmony for many organizations as new working methods and technologies were deployed in response to the emergency. Barriers were dropped and silos disappeared. CEOs and senior leaders now expect the rapid accord that was developed to deal with the pandemic to continue unabated. This is the Accelerated Now.
Out of tune: Outdated technology and processes get exposed
​The pandemic is credited — rightly — with accelerating digital change in organizations. But it is important to remember that the pandemic demonstrated that business was out of tune before the virus disrupted daily lives. Too many business improvement programs were called transformational, yet hybrid technology environments — on-premises and cloud — were deployed without full exploitation of the possibilities of enterprise cloud computing. As a result, legacy technology and outdated business processes that supported the continued use of these technologies remained in place. Data was hoarded in silos that prevented a true business-wide analysis of the situation an organization found itself in.
Sadly, it took the ultimate form of disruption to shine a light into these dark corners of the enterprise. Faced with a complete inability to carry on as normal, organizations and team members found they could work in different ways — that the technology they had been using was, in truth, not fit for purpose. In addition, old business processes are not helpful when the business is being operated from a kitchen bench, spare bedroom, dining table or even the garden shed. All of these had the potential to lower the security threshold of the business — and unfortunately, those less scrupulous in our societies exploited those weaknesses.
Evolution of business and technology harmony
The future of business and technology harmony is bright. Enterprise technology has been on a journey from poor alignment in the early 2000s to today's technology-empowered business lines, and to a near future where business and technology changes are one and the same. When business and technology are in harmony, they jointly adapt and change according to business need, customer expectations or opportunity. No longer is change, in either business process or technology, a discrete project with expectations and outcomes. Change becomes a constant state of business and technology.
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