Enterprises have been constantly challenged by the rapidly evolving technology curve. While being prepared for new-age business goals, they are also battling decisions regarding adoption of capital-intensive technology that may soon become outdated.
In a recent think tank with a few CXOs in Bangalore, Frost & Sullivan discussed how enterprises in India today are approaching critical technology purchasing decisions with a firm eye on the top line and bottom line of the organization. In this backdrop, cloud and mobility solutions become more and more relevant; IT decisions today are not focused on evaluating capacities of a solution, but its capabilities that can provide flexibility to any organization to pursue their business imperatives.
The Frost & Sullivan moderated think tank and poll brought out a few case studies from companies who have deployed these solutions. It also discovered the openness of CIOs to consider cloud and mobility based solutions regardless the size of the enterprise. While data security and privacy is the number one challenge, scalability and business agility are compelling companies to evaluate new-age technologies.
The need of the hour: Business Agility and Customer Experience
In a poll conducted for the think tank, majority of the respondents voted customer experience as the top factor determining technology decisions. Executives echo that in today’s business environment ensuring optimal customer experience has become a priority and is indispensable.
Frost & Sullivan’s survey finds that business agility is a major reason for enterprises adopting mobility and cloud technologies. Irrespective of whether a company is an e-commerce start up or a diversified conglomerate, CxOs are under more pressure than before to multiply their turnover by the second and hence any step they can take to speed up the sales cycle is considered on priority.
There is a fast growing rate of adoption of public cloud based applications, especially by SMBs. However for larger internal IT applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), companies tread cautiously before they are sure of the ROI. However experienced CIOs say that the benefits far outweigh the skepticism. While the costs at a glance may make internal investments look cheaper and give a company 100 percent ownership of the assets, cloud based services offer scalability, pay-as-you-go, security, technology upgrades and the ability to handle large volumes.
Companies have realized that the Bring-your-own-device phenomenon is upon us and hence are looking for ways and means to leverage it. Enterprise restrictions on personal device usage are loosening up only marginally, while several companies have embraced it to drive employee engagement as well as tracking and monitoring productivity. However, having resources work with their own myriad connected devices opens several risks such as data theft, hacking, among others, and poses numerous challenges.
