Test-dri­ving one of the lat­est BMW car mod­els can be a cap­ti­vat­ing and mind-blow­ing expe­ri­ence, jam-packed with appli­ca­tion plat­forms. The lux­u­ry brand is rais­ing the bar on every cus­tomer’s dri­ving expe­ri­ence — from bring­ing dri­vers clos­er to autonomous dri­ving, to deliv­er­ing per­son­al­ized com­fort and proac­tive road­side assistance.

BMW is one exam­ple of the thou­sands of busi­ness­es world­wide that are mod­ern­iz­ing their IT orga­ni­za­tions from main­te­nance-only to inno­va­tion-focused. And each com­pa­ny is dri­ving new oppor­tu­ni­ties that turn petabytes of data into expe­ri­ences that change how peo­ple use and inter­act with the prod­ucts they buy.

Accord­ing to Jes­si­ca Heath, SAP busi­ness lead for Red Hat’s North Amer­i­can region, this trend indi­cates a trans­for­ma­tive move­ment that’s sweep­ing across indus­tries. ​“All com­pa­nies are learn­ing that they must become great soft­ware com­pa­nies to remain com­pet­i­tive. This state­ment can be a bit daunt­ing, but with the right tools and part­ners in place, they can acquire the capa­bil­i­ties to move for­ward,” she shared dur­ing the ASUG Next-Gen­er­a­tion SAP Enter­prise Archi­tect Sum­mit.

Turn­ing the Cor­ner Past Keep­ing the Lights On

If you feel behind in your business’s dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, you’re not alone. More than 25% few­er orga­ni­za­tions indi­cat­ed they were well into their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion in 2020, accord­ing to a Red Hat sur­vey. The study also reports inte­gra­tion issues (27%), secu­ri­ty and com­pli­ance (26%), tal­ent gaps (25%), cost reduc­tion (25%), and tech­ni­cal debt (23%) as their top bar­ri­ers to suc­cess­ful dig­i­tal transformation. 

At a time when indus­tries are rapid­ly trans­form­ing, and agili­ty is crit­i­cal to keep up and find com­pelling dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion, these sur­vey find­ings sug­gest that most busi­ness­es may soon face a cru­cial turn­ing point. 

Heath observed, ​“Busi­ness­es want to con­stant­ly devel­op new ways to inter­act with cus­tomers to make them want to come back. Whether this hap­pens through appli­ca­tions, DevOps, mobile appli­ca­tions, or com­pet­i­tive­ly agile oper­a­tions, they need to build com­pre­hen­sive appli­ca­tions to sup­port their process­es, cus­tomers, and growth.”

Jump­ing over Inno­va­tion Hur­dles with Standardization

How can com­pa­nies get past their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion block­ers and start pos­i­tive­ly impact­ing their cus­tomers and their bot­tom line? The answer is rebal­anc­ing pri­or­i­ties and select­ing tools that sup­port agile deliv­ery of new dig­i­tal capabilities.

It’s impor­tant to remem­ber that this road to mod­ern­iza­tion is an incre­men­tal path — even the small­est adjust­ments or addi­tions can make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence. Stan­dard­iz­ing the enter­prise archi­tec­ture sim­pli­fies the own­er­ship expe­ri­ence where work­loads run and mul­ti­plies IT staff effec­tive­ness by con­sol­i­dat­ing skill sets. Fur­ther­more, this step opens the door to a wealth of valu­able capa­bil­i­ties that replace old-school, ad-hoc, and reac­tive oper­a­tions with appli­ca­tion and ser­vice deliv­ery mod­els that are rapid, agile, and secure.

​“Once busi­ness­es real­ize the ben­e­fits of stan­dard­iz­ing on one plat­form, such as Red Hat Enter­prise Lin­ux, they can take their first steps toward IT mod­ern­iza­tion,” advised Heath.

While every orga­ni­za­tion faces unique start­ing points and chal­lenges in its trans­for­ma­tion, Heath’s team has iden­ti­fied com­mon threads across all of its cus­tomers’ mod­ern­iza­tion strate­gies — automa­tion, inte­gra­tion, exten­sion, and deliv­ery. ​“Each of these steps, no mat­ter the order used, pro­vides the incre­men­tal val­ue that busi­ness­es often find real and last­ing and, quite frankly, eas­i­er and more cost-effec­tive than a big-bang approach,” she not­ed. ​“Run­ning SAP work­loads on Red Hat solu­tions reduces infra­struc­ture and oper­at­ing sys­tem costs imme­di­ate­ly with the added abil­i­ty to be nim­ble at mov­ing work­loads in the future.” 

Prepar­ing the IT Land­scape for What­ev­er Comes Next

We are undoubt­ed­ly liv­ing in a time of desta­bi­liza­tion. In a mat­ter of a year, near­ly every­thing we do, see, and expe­ri­ence has changed com­plete­ly. But despite all this uncer­tain­ty, I still believe that adapt­ing to new cus­tomer behav­iors and employ­ee require­ments will only help com­pa­nies grow stronger.

Whether automa­tion, inte­gra­tion, exten­sion, or deliv­ery is their radar to nav­i­gate this moment, busi­ness­es are grad­u­al­ly learned that a mod­ern­ized IT sys­tem is the key to trans­form­ing oper­a­tions, inno­vat­ing new expe­ri­ences, and, ulti­mate­ly, sur­pass­ing the competition.

Explore more best prac­tices and tech­nolo­gies that can help mod­ern­ize your IT land­scape. Watch the on-demand ses­sion, ​“Don’t Just Migrate. Build on a Scal­able, Flex­i­ble, and Intel­li­gent Foun­da­tion That Sets You Up for a Future of Inno­va­tion,” fea­tur­ing Jes­si­ca Heath, senior man­ag­er of SAP Busi­ness North Amer­i­ca at Red Hat.