Key enabler for digital transformation are inherently open source platforms
Digital transformation is what is happening to organisations as they adopt new and innovative ways to do business based on technological advances. It is the process of fundamentally changing something using digital tools and describes adopting technology and potentially, cultural changes to improve or replace whatever existed before. Digital transformation is not a product or solution to be purchased, but it affects everything IT touches in every industry.
The technologies that spur digital transformation, big data, mobile, cloud, containers, are all open source. The biggest implementation of big data, Hadoop—is based on open source technology. The largest mobile operating system is based on Linux. The leading container cores, Kubernetes and Moby are open source. Today’s largest public cloud providers use open source software, and the most-used private cloud product is OpenStack.
If digital transformation is evolution spurred by technology, and the leading technologies spurring digital transformation are open source, then digital transformation is inherently open source.
Business decision makers have visibility and understanding of market dynamics and customer expectations, experience. They also have influence over corporate strategy, initiatives and budgets. With the increasing influence that technology is playing as a foundation for digital transformation, business heads are becoming more informed of the technologies available in the market.
This is driving demand from business heads to IT to be more responsive to allow the business to test and adopt new innovative technology far more quickly than before. It is important for business heads to focus on working more closely with their technology heads to be keep request and feedback loops as efficient as possible. It is also critically important that they articulate their business objectives to IT in a way that is clearly understood to IT stakeholders.
Technology heads have a critical, but difficult role to play in steering the transformation of a business. They are expected to deliver a scalable and flexible platform to support business agility and innovation in order to respond to the needs of the business. This requires the ability to respond quickly and efficiently to an ever, increasing rate of change and increase in complexity as applications and services scale across multiple environments.
At the same time, technology heads are expected to maintain a secure, robust and highly performant platform to support the business. The challenge for the technology heads is to maintain a balance between these opposite forces.
There is also an opportunity for technology heads to take the lead when it comes to innovation and engage proactively with business heads. This will require the technology heads to become more familiar with the business priorities within their respective organisations and to look beyond the technical capabilities they deliver, to the business impact and value they can provide with the technology.
The Red Hat product focuses on helping clients to address five critical areas:
- Building hybrid cloud infrastructure
- Building cloud native applications
- Automating IT
- Optimising existing IT infrastructure
- Integrating applications, data and processes
Highlights
- Digital transformation is not a product or solution to be purchased, but it affects everything IT touches in every industry.
- In the era of digital disruption, technology is vitally important not only for business growth, but also business survival.
- With the influence that technology is playing, business heads are becoming more informed of the technologies available in the market.
- Technology heads have a critical, but difficult role to play in steering the transformation of a business.
- It is important for business heads to articulate their business objectives to IT in a way that is clearly understood to IT stakeholders.
By Mark Hosking, Head of Emerging Technologies, CEMEA, Red Hat.
