Digital Business Defined

The term Digital Transformation is growing in popularity, but few seem to be able to define it succinctly. Progress Senior Director of Solutions Marketing Paul Nashawaty lays out our vision.

Technology is a powerful disruptor. As leaders in the tech industry, we have seen this time and time again. It can feel hard enough for a developer or IT professional to keep up with the daily maintenance of existing applications and infrastructure, the development of strategies that take advantage of current mobile trends, the support required from marketing around the website and elsewhere. Not to mention that data needs are exploding. Amid all this, how can we see the next big thing coming?

Change is constant. The Internet of Things. Cloud infrastructure. Wearables, Bring-Your-Own-Device policies, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS—the list of challenges businesses must keep up with goes on and on. But these challenges also represent an opportunity. Very few businesses feel they are prepared for the digital changes that are coming. This is a chance for the technology experts to drive business goals, and not the other way around. Organizations that grasp this and embrace change will be the ones that survive.

"Uncertainty—as a tech leader you have to embrace it rather than fight against it. In our world, we don't have the stability of other industries and we need to constantly learn and play a very dynamic game. A game where the rules and the competitors often change." – Vassil Terziev, Progress Chief Innovation Officer

This is Digital Transformation—the transformation of an entire organization to become more agile and deliver compelling customer experiences. Although this includes customer facing apps and websites, that is only the beginning. This is a top to bottom rethink of what it means to operate in a digital world, requiring changes to the way an organization operates inside and out.

What does this mean? It means leveraging technology to truly personalize web experiences across whatever screen is being used. For IT, it means modernizing existing applications and directing the course new business applications will take. Mobility and compelling web experiences for users across all channels must be center stage.

It’s easy for an organization to overlook the need for change, but the research is clear. Noted analyst Ray Wang has stated that digital disruption will replace four of the top 10 incumbents in industries like financial services, hospitality and travel. Forrester Research tells us that IT teams who focus solely on executing today’s digital marketing plans miss the potential for broader transformation. Forrester also noted that a mere 21% of executives believe they have the right people in place to define their digital strategy, and even fewer believe they have the right people to execute it.

Change is constant—there’s no getting away from that in the tech world. The businesses that thrive will be those that embrace this and are prepared to transform themselves into the agile and mobile organization that can serve today’s customers. There is a tremendous opportunity in the enterprise world to be among the first to ride this wave of digital transformation.

At Progress, we’ve been transforming businesses for a long time, and we have the vision, the toolset and the track record to help organizations adapt quickly and effectively. We hope you’ll join us on this journey.