Research says IT must be boundaryless, adaptable, and radically human

INVESTING in technology is the need of the hour, and businesses that are taking digital transformation and digital maturity seriously are definitely going to be better off than those that aren’t.

However, not all those investments seem to be pleasing customers, helping employees, or even delivering on ROI projections. Although not ideal, business leaders might still be able to get more out of their technology projects in 2020 by simply revisiting their strategy.

According to a new study that surveyed more than 8,300 organizations in 20 industries and 22 countries, getting enterprise IT right allows businesses to double revenue growth.

The research indicates that those winning in the digital age are adopting fast, flexible technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and containers (cloud computing), and are using solutions that enable decoupled data, infrastructure, and applications.

Truth be told, it’s refreshing to see that business leaders keen on gaining an edge in the digital world in 2020 and beyond are investing in cloud computing and believe that it is an effective way to leverage other technologies such as machine learning, computer vision, and even big data and analytics.

Despite the initial challenges that most businesses faced on their cloud migration journey, the report shows that business leaders focused on growth are championing the cloud and see it as a catalyst to innovation.

An interesting statistic that the report produced was that 90 percent of businesses that succeed with technology take steps to ensure data quality rather than relying on data that is potentially unverified or biased.

For any business leader looking to scale up their investments in technology and climb the digital maturity curve, that single statistic key to transforming into a digital business because it shows the value of data in leveraging any technology.

Data is the foundational block of most technologies including analytics and artificial intelligence, and failure to map, collect, analyze, and secure data can expose the business to several threats.

Further, unreliable data yields unreliable results, which ultimately fosters a culture where managers don’t trust the data or the insights generated from intelligent analytics or AI tools.

Organizations that want to succeed in the digital age know they cannot ignore culture — it’s why they aim to foster collaborations between divisions, remove silos, and even create environments where learning new skills is supported and encouraged.

The focus of every great technology strategy in 2020

Based on the findings of the study, the report points out that technology investments in 2020 and beyond will only be able to flourish when the organization is able to create an environment or ecosystem that allows for humans and machines to bring out the best in each other.

To thrive, the core of every organization’s technology strategy must ensure that the focus is on building boundaryless, adaptable, and radically human systems.

Boundaryless systems allow for the creation of new spaces where ideas and partnerships flourish by leveraging the skills and capabilities that humans and machines have to offer.

Being adaptable helps systems learn, improve, and adapt by themselves — that’s what new-age technology is capable of — and humans must trust it to augment and empower them rather than see it as a threat or fail to trust it.

Finally, aiming to build systems that are radically human simply means that tomorrow’s systems need to be able to talk, listen, see and understand like humans, making human-machine interactions simple and effortless.

When organizations are able to use technology more harmoniously with their people, using both to drive their growth, there will be more prosperity overall, ultimately leading to faster revenue growth.

The important thing to remember is that many of the mid-sized and large enterprises aren’t ignoring technology; their struggle lies in adapting to technology, relying on it, and building a culture of innovating with technology.

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