The world of digital transformation | Innov8

It’s an ever-changing digital world, aka digital transformation...That’s a scary statement, isn’t it?

The entire world has gradually moved to a more tech-enabled one and will undoubtedly continue to evolve. Navigating a business through what you want and what your business needs in terms of technology is, for most business owners, nothing short of an unwelcome headache.

Let’s look at IT infrastructure for an example, specifically in retail. Retail is in transition, a digital revolution in fact. The pandemic shook the industry, with retailers that were late to embrace e-commerce taking the biggest hit, resulting in store closures and sadly, bankruptcies. Technological infrastructure is imperative for retail companies to confidently meet the demand of their customers, being able to scale, react and now more crucial than ever at the HEART of retail is robust, tailored, and efficient technology infrastructure for retailers to gain a competitive edge.

IT infrastructure encapsulates a range of technology from hardware (for example retail tills, payment acceptance, etc), software (back-end systems, e-commerce & more), network components (e.g. internet connectivity), plus maintenance, consulting and even system integration. That sounds like a lot. It is and probably not a full list. These elements all make up the key assets to an efficient, deliverable infrastructure system that is purpose-driven for your business.

Of course, it isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ approach (what is?!) and there are a few common concerns to take into consideration when you’re thinking about bringing your business into a more digital way of working.

1. New Technologies – the emerging trends. For example, moving to virtualized servers / cloud-based systems / web-based interfaces and mobile infrastructure with hybrid operating systems are more popular than ever before and actually adopting these changes isn’t a straightforward task. Always consider that ongoing future technology upgrades will require time and money along with staff training and implementation.

2. Scalability – In the IT world of digital transformation, scalability is defined as “having IT costs rise linearly with increases in IT capability”. i.e. being able to adjust quickly in response to demand is the ultimate reflection of infrastructure scalability and protects against under (or over) estimated investment in your infrastructure plans.

3. Future Proofing - It’s a tricky one and one that is often overlooked as digital transformation is never complete and trying to predict what technology capacity requirements will be needed as time goes on. Lack of planning in this area can result in a downturn around continuity of service, fault tolerance and even data integrity.

It is a lot to bear in mind, but ultimately that is why our customers come to us – we do IT. We understand the challenges of the industries our clients operate in, so we can deliver projects that are designed with them in mind. That’s what gives Innov8 our edge.

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This blog is based on our own experiences. Written by Carl Maher - Innov8 Managing Director. 22/06/2022.

 

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