Digital data deluge is driving the need for business transformation

With 95% of the world's data produced in just the last two years, IT transformation is a must to deal with this growth and leverage the data to innovate, said Eric Goh, MD and VP, Singapore Enterprise Business, Dell EMC.

Speaking on the sidelines of the recent Dell EMC Forum 2017 in Singapore Goh used the analogy of cars today to show how technology can help to deal with an influx of data. He noted that 94% of car accidents are because of human error, and that there will be a projected 310 vehicles per 1,000 people in 2035, making the roads more crowded and raising the absolute number of accidents. "How do you cope with that kind of growth, are you going to be building more infrastructure?" he asked.

Dell Technologies believes that businesses have to evolve in response to changes in consumer expectations about service delivery. The company has a four-pronged approach in enabling digital transformation that involves IT transformation with cloud and advanced infrastructure; workforce transformation, focusing on employees; and security transformation to ensure that there is protection around the whole.

Instead of expanding on existing infrastructure, give up on direct human control and look to technology to solve the challenges of scale and complexity, he suggested. Self-driving cars have a better safety track record than humans, he pointed out, with one accident in 2 million miles (about 5 million km) driven. "A lot of automotive brands are moving to autonomic vehicles. The key here is the software," he said. "Software is going to run our systems, that's what digital transformation is all about."

Technology opens up the playing field to companies which have traditionally not been in the same industry, he added, naming Apple and Uber as non-car manufacturers which are investing in self-driving cars. Digital transformation is imperative deliver the efficiency, predictability and business agility that will allow incumbents to deal with new competitors, diversify into other industries themselves, and survive in the long term, he said.

"It's all about business agility today. If you are not agile you are going to be out of business," he warned, sharing that 71% of customers agree that they could be disrupted by other organisations and by digital startups in three to five years' time.

Goh recommended that businesses:

Transform IT operations so that it can deliver relevant services for the digital transformation journey

Modernise infrastructure and architecture

• Use technologies like all-flash to increase performance and get energy savings
• Scale out with new apps and data
• Move to software-defined architectures
• Use the cloud and find ways to broker services between on-premise and off-premise
• Embed security throughout the infrastructure

Automate service delivery in terms of provisioning, self-service, and empowerment to users.

"It's not just the data centre that needs to be transformed, it's also the workforce, how you create new digital workspaces in order to support this new innovation," he added. "Everything has to be wrapped around with security."

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