With digital technology evolving , organisations across all industries are feeling increased pressure to adapt to the immense changes the digital world brings . Without a doubt digital transformation is no longer simply ‘ an option ’.

Philip Grannum , EVP UK at Interoute shares his views on digital transformation and speaks about key trends and opportunities for enterprises in 2017 .

CREATING THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS

A lot of companies think adopting a cloud-first model equals digital transformation , but if you look at this approach ; pure cloud doesn ’ t address the majority of IT already in place in the enterprise today which can contain valuable data that is , for one reason or another , unfit for the cloud .

For real digital transformation , you need to create a connection across your entire infrastructure to integrate it . Interoute ’ s approach is to use a combination of methods to bind all your IT assets together , uniting digital and cloud with legacy IT . Once you have a digital platform as your foundation , you can then make sensible decisions on what you want to do without being constrained by a particular form factor or technology . n

SMARTER SPENDING

Cloud and digital transformation programmes will continue to drive new IT spend . While some commentators expect 2017 to be flat on IT spending overall , we expect to see IT increase its spend on cloud and digital transformation . In particular , we ’ ll see investment in emerging integrated digital platforms that enable a business to move faster , deploy resources quicker and exploit new market opportunities . n

CHANGE REMAINS A CONSTANT

Whatever organisations think they ’ re going to do , they will change their minds . They ’ re moving from a traditional , physical environment to digital platforms that are hugely scalable . This changes the way you think about how to design and architect things . People start out wanting a more hands-on approach and quickly realise they don ’ t need that .

Enterprises in the future will use services as the basis for responding to their markets . To use my car analogy , the enterprise won ’ t really care what ’ s below that aluminium head ; it will just assume it all works and will measure its performance on that assumption .

It ’ s definitely an evolution and we ’ re going through phase one of that right now . But , as an organisation , if you ’ re at phase one and you think you ’ re going to move to phase two , take a moment to think . Is there a bold option where you can move straight to a phase three or beyond ? If there is , you may get the jump on your competition and transform into a market leader . n interoute . com