Evaluating enterprise computing systems: The right time – The right need
Every technology, services, and product company comprises multiple layers of systems, a web of processes, relationships, and interdependencies of the components. Founding infrastructure was one of the most crucial aspects of investment in the past, So is in the present and will be inevitable in the future. These systems are slowly growing out of power, capacity, ability to support business in new times with new requirements. Market dynamics, user patterns have become unpredictable. In some cases, we see exponential growth in the customer base, revenue, and product consumption. Such dynamic market trends need scalable smart technology architecture. These capabilities provide the much-needed agility and velocity of conducting business in various ecosystems without compromising on security. The benefits can be limitless if we map the right use-cases. We are seeing boundaryless datacentres and software-defined data centers catching up. There is no time to think about recommissioning the legacy components and the cost savings myth associated with it.
Product companies have their investment strategy focused on engineering the product but not on the system that helps them engineer the product. This is why they must consider the new investment trends and technology adoptions to stay relevant in the market. Business leaders should start taking a fresh perspective on their enterprise investment portfolio. CTO’s of large organizations have already started looking at the transformation projects, including Infrastructure refresh, hardware refresh, and Culture refresh. They work closely with cloud migration and digital transformation partners to reshape their traditional setup, which will need a rehaul from thought process to paradigm shifts to technology usage.
When we talk about “X” new ways of transactions, giving rise to “X” factorial ways of data generation. Any transaction produces data, and this data is our future. The most expensive thing to get on earth these days until we realize that we, our businesses, our processes, and our transactions are generating data that will help us redefine the way we work. When putting through augmented analytics, this data helps us know more about our way of working and the end-users, markets, preferences. Data consumers have become data producers, and this is going to increase with IoT and connected Ecosystems. Now we are talking about IoE (Internet of Everything), Edge computing, which is becoming mainstream tools to gain strategic benefits. This new archetype should be welcomed into all the layers of systems to render an advantage to the businesses. This stresses investment in many areas: People (Resources), Process (Business), Practice (guidelines), Platform (Technology).
Core systems (Platform): The core system is the foundation above which your complete (ICT) Information communication technology infrastructure resides. Like Oracle, it can be the base application layer for application-centric organizations and is referred to as the Infrastructure layer, which traditionally hosts professional and business services. These were the areas where the investment was made with a reserved approach to ensure the business services are available. In the business and product world, core systems are invisible, as this is not directly making or selling their products. However, here the context that I am going to use the core systems will be through the lenses of business.
Point to note
Core systems hosts linking systems and transactional systems on their infrastructure. There are logical boundaries created to segregate the mentioned systems and provide the CIAS (Confidentiality – Integrity – Availability – Security)
CIO’s and product-centric organizations are most concerned about the core systems as these demands skilled resources to manage and maintain the infrastructure. Frequent licensing (OS, S/w), maintenance, and Technology hardware are consuming a good part of the budget. This current tech stack is getting obsolete much earlier than expected, and new investment prospects are already beginning. The IT leaders should start exploring options that include the combination of nascent and innovative technologies coming into existence. The legacy systems and components are a different challenge altogether. When the refresh is planned from old to new systems, the challenge is to migrate existing applications and services to the modern founding architecture. This always attracts complications as the latest tech stack is more compliant and open towards new evolving application language platforms. So, re-architecting and modeling the complete application architecture is painstakingly time-consuming, effort demanding, and complicated. This is another area that is the least favorite of the business side.
Perspective
Due to increasing pressure on streamlining IT investments – Businesses have to look out for new options. In the current setup, the traditional infrastructure and datacentre farms can be transformed into a hybrid cloud solution that provides flexibility to retain your proprietary information in-house and rest on the cloud. This will reduce the total cost of ownership of IT hardware, maintenance cost, licenses, and resources to support them. The new hybrid approach can majorly contribute to the ROI parameter. It is more of a strategic decision than a use- case-based conviction.
Perspective:
Linking systems (products): Linking systems connect the business transactions that occur between the business users and business unit owners. These systems support internal services, functions, and organizational teams that constitute the overall business operations.
Linking systems include
- Authentication – communication and information capturing systems,
- All CRM (Customer relationship mgmt. applications
- Employment & customer database
- Sales & Marketing information
- Product information systems
- Manufacturing and supply chain systems
- Logistics and not to forget
- IT systems that help you to work within the organization.
Perspective
New technologies like Digital platforms provide a business the convenience of information anytime, anywhere, and on anything. Analytics reduces the manual effort and calculations to gain insight and analysis, which has reached a decent amount of maturity. ROQ (Return on Quality) will be a considerable measure to ensure systems to be more accurate, available, interactive, and ease of use. This is going to affect the business operations and speed of business, directly and indirectly, increasing the moral quotient of employees.
Transactional systems (Value system): Transactional systems are the ones that are interfacing and interacting with the end-users. These systems are the most crucial and add value to the business. The serviceability and functionality of these systems define the credibility and branding of the organization. These systems are continuously generating, capturing, and communicating data in all directions, The users, business, and 3rd party. Hence these devices are expected to be the latest and serviceable to all customers. There are various input sources and transactions in the current time. These systems have to comply and deliver on these expectations. Consumers and users are growing impatient and have less tolerance due to upgrading technology. A few seconds loss is a business loss that can also lead to perception loss, credibility loss. Hence, transactional systems have to be in power with the market requirements and available in as many possible sources for user convenience.
Perspective
The new technology offerings help in speeding up the transactions as well as keeping them secure. These offerings can also add an element of personalization to the user preference and experience. Blockchain and Artificial intelligence are introducing numerous natural ways of conducting a transaction with minimal system intrusion.
Value is much more than money. This VOI component will contribute to the Business as well as the end-users. The value is transferred from one transaction to another. For example, an organization’s cost can be an enhancement in the brand value and an increased customer base. For an end-user, this might save time and effort, which adds up to the end-user experience. The critical factor is to point towards the adoption of these new technologies.
This diagram depicts the various systems and services in each layer, followed by benefit realization. The bubbles showcase the relevance and fitment of the respective disruptive technology, which is not limited to the possibilities shown here. There can be numerous and unimaginable applications in any layer based on industries and business functions.
There are numerous use cases based on the industry, business unit, and functional areas that lay in and around these three layers of systems. This can be the best starting point for any organization to start evaluating the current state Vs. Future state and begin allocating the budgets based on vision, mission Objective of the own leadership. ROI, ROQ, and VOI can be placeholders and a perfect business case to start introspecting and planning to take the first step towards hitting the REFRESH button.
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