CxOs, industry leaders, and futurists suggest that enterprises and service providers need to collaborate (better than ever before) to undertake the digital transformation journey to bring to bear the benefits that this transformation promises.

Having said that, enterprises should discuss following questions in the areas of processes, people, technology, and cost, beforehand, to create a relevant digital transformation roadmap that will align with their overall strategy -

• How the IT of digital enterprise should be managed to solve complex business problems?
• How can we have a tools and processes for proactive visibility in to the digital enterprise? How Time to market can be further shortened?
• How can we skill/reskill employees to take part in the journey?
• How existing investments can be reutilized on the path to digital to make more compelling business case with no-locking to technology and/or vendors?

Next two to three years will see a tectonic shift in the way digital enterprises operate to manage business demand in a swifter and cost-effective manner. Here are few examples of how new digital technologies and solutions can help enterprises -

1. Creating out-of-the-box integrations enabling Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics Process Automation (RPA) led processes to create leaner and intelligent IT
2. Analytics-based, policy-driven IT operations model by accessing intuitive reports and cognitive information
3. Incorporating solutions based on Augmented Reality (AR) to create unparalleled user experience
4. Application workload placement and optimization engine along with DevOps capabilities by showcasing cost modeling across cloud service providers

Next steps in the journey towards digital:

Once the findings from the above assessment (questions) are gathered, next thing for businesses is to focus on -

1. Identifying the future tech stack that is relevant to their business model
2. Identifying investments required for re-skilling the workforce on the future stack/models
3. Creating a plan for moving from System of Records to System of Engagement

One approach cannot fit for all the enterprises. Enterprises will need a customized roadmap and solution which best fits for them and their needs. Therefore, it is recommended to collaborate with a service provider to understand how other companies in your industry are adopting digital, who are the leading providers of the required digital technologies and solutions, which technologies best suit your needs, and how they can be stitched together to provide the required level of customization. The service provided can be customized and integrated in a single bundle, providing the customer a single entity to front-end with.