What to look for in a digital first business partner

In today’s rapidly evolving hybrid world, business leaders recognise the competitive advantages of undertaking a journey to become a Digital First business. However, the last few years have changed the goalposts and now the modern business environment demands secure access to data and applications from anywhere, at any time, from any device, wherever those assets are hosted.

Obstructions to digital transformation

The new corporate network is user centric, aiming to deliver an unmatched digital experience in terms of performance and security for people, machines, or sensors. However, traditional network-centric security architecture is too complex to handle this new paradigm. It’s becoming a bottleneck that inhibits digital business’ needs and it can be argued that the high failure-rate of Digital First business projects stems from this complexity.

Aligning business goals with digital strategy, managing interdependencies between network and cloud solutions, and staying on top of cybersecurity is a lot to think about; and all whilst working with multiple vendors to piece it all together. The traditional network security model was datacentre-centric, where devices and users rarely left the shelter of the company network. Those devices were protected by a hard perimeter that safeguarded everything inside. Then users, devices, and applications moved outside the network. The perimeter-based model became less relevant as mobile and cloud computing flung assets far and wide.

Finding the right partner As the global consulting industry continues to grow (estimated value of $525.57 billion by 2027), the market for proficient digital transformation consultants will become limited. This means it’s vital to team up with a reputable Systems Integrator (SI) to help to increase the chances of success.

Transformations are lengthy, and time and resource intensive, so finding the right collaborative partner is crucial to achieving goals. It’s worth investing in a partner who can deliver fit-for-purpose, scalable technology solutions based on an objective review of business requirements. Buying individual products is not the answer.

Success comes from partnering with a company that has dual understanding of both network and digital services with a holistic and vendor agnostic platform approach. Look for a provider that is more than just a systems integrator – one that is also a network operator, over-the-top service provider, as well as having a wide ecosystem of leading technology players. This type of a network-native digital services company is better positioned to manage the whole of an enterprises’ workload by controlling its own platform-play ecosystem from an infrastructure standpoint. This brings a cloud native experience to secured digital infrastructure and delivers success because it can ensure consistency across connectivity, cloud, and security – end-to-end – which is integral to today’s scalable Digital First businesses.

Technical expertise

There are three components that must work together to achieve the protection and performance enterprises need. Having the first two technology components is necessary, but the third is crucial to have in place:

1. The first mandatory pillar of a secure access service edge design (SASE) is to have future-proofed, best-of-breed connectivity providing businesses with the flexibility and cost-effectiveness they need, irrespective of where their employees operate. Software-defined wide area networks (SD-WAN), which can act as an intelligent and configurable overlay. Users, applications, and data can all be connected in a resilient and secure way using a broad range of connectivity providers and technologies, including 5G, MPLS direct Internet and satellite. This connectivity forms the bedrock of the change in security posture enterprises need to go through.

2. The second pillar requires an additional cloud-based security approach to secure access in the new dispersed app ecosystem and protect users, devices, apps, and data wherever they are. SASE views identity, real-time context, specific policies and an enterprise’s risk assessment to determine how the business should respond. It provides IT teams flexibility, cost savings and simplicity by cutting down the variety of disparate security products most organisations currently deploy. It brings together network and security, so no more silos or vendors working separately with the enterprise left to bridge the gap. It’s a single view of the network users rely on, and the defences required to keep them safe.

3. Digital management services to orchestrate agility, availability, and performance. Having the visibility and ability to act is vital to managing complexity, improving operational efficiency, and refining the performance of the multiple providers in the ecosystem. These tools must be continuously tuned and evolving to maintain high-performance levels. Experience shows that this requires combining skills in data science, technology, and operations into a single “reliability engineering” function. They need to adopt a structured, data-driven improvement method that analyses incidents affecting the business and can eliminate, automate, or mitigate these issues progressively and in a prioritised way. Once this visibility is established, businesses can implement an adapted operational management model. This co-ordinates ITIL processes with all third-party providers and is responsible for the ecosystem’s performance and operational management.

This combination of future-proofed best-of-breed connectivity, cloud-based security, and digital management services goes beyond technical building blocks to create a composable, high-performance, open platform that delivers agility, performance, security, and personalised orchestration.

A digital transformation success

Fundamentally, anyone can acquire the tools and solutions required, but not everyone has the aptitude to turn those tools into something that can determine business outcomes. Enterprises are looking for ways to map out where they should be in one, two or five years. They need to be able to determine their risks and how to become more agile. Working all that out internally, using existing resources, talent, and skillsets, can be challenging.

The most successful projects are those with buy-in from both product owner and client; with people who dedicate time to review progress and provide feedback at key stages.

Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE), a global coffee company, partnered with a network-native digital services company to support its ambitious global expansion plans, alongside the digital transformation of more than 120 locations. New teams and sites were integrated into its global IT infrastructure with secure end-to-end connectivity, allowing the company to access corporate applications and the network. This saved JDE a significant amount of time and allowed for rapid onboarding. It also put the company on a solid transformational path, providing the digital and flexible services needed to reach its expansion goals – alongside an improved end-user experience.

JDE now benefits from a secure and agile infrastructure built on connectivity, cloud, and security expertise, designed to propel its business forward by accelerating its Digital First business journey. The company has already seen major performance benefits with the ability to quickly add new sites to its network, reinforcing the value of a solid partnership.

Cost According to IDC, 69% of tech leaders globally are very anxious about the growing amount of technology investment required to remain competitive. Cost is a reality of becoming a Digital First business, so it’s important to comprehend the financial benefits it will bring as this will assist with resistance to change. The perfect transformation partners should be able to work with their enterprise customers to pull together a complete package that can be presented to business and C-level executives to review, before giving their go-ahead.

Final Thoughts

No matter what transformation means for an organisation, taking on this journey without the right team of experts on-side is a risk that could undermine future success. A Digital First business partner can help design, execute, and accelerate the journey and achieve long-term success amid relentless and rapid change. With the right trusted partner managing a large partner ecosystem, an organisation can tap into new skills, contacts, and insights that can help them compete on a whole new level today and get future ready.