Digital Transformation for Digital Native Businesses

THE ARTICLES ON THESE PAGES ARE PRODUCED BY BUSINESS REPORTER, WHICH TAKES SOLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONTENTS

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Digital Transformation is about real change from old to new in pursuit of value generation in a changing landscape. Large Enterprises often embark upon Digital Transformation to stay relevant in face of new and evolving challenges. These common sets of challenges range from legacy systems to legacy processes, culture and/or mindset.

While the above is true for Large Enterprises, Digital Transformation has a different meaning in the context of Digital Native Businesses. Digital Natives are those businesses that have their inception in the last 10 years and use digital medium as their primary mechanism of value creation. They don’t suffer from legacy baggage.

Digital Native businesses share the following common technological characteristics that shape their digital transformation needs:

• Use of Public Cloud for infrastructure operations
• Strive for state-of-the-art DevOps setup in their context
• Value depth over breadth in technology skills
• Operate as lean tech teams
• Non-hierarchical and fast-decision making

Digital Natives use cloud computing along with modern practices such as agile and continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD). However, like any business, these companies still need to evolve with technology. And in a world where technology changes so quickly this is difficult: IT architecture becomes slow and inconvenient, costs escalate, security vulnerabilities appear from nowhere, data volumes explode and cost more and more to store.

Transforming Digital Natives

Digitally Native Businesses are highly technical, but generally in specialist areas. They may be “born in the cloud” but many struggle to leverage the full potential of emerging tech such as Cloud, Data and AI.

The following are the four key technological challenges on their continuous transformation journey:

1. Acquiring and retaining relevant technical talent
2. Keeping up with technological advancement - Cloud, Data and AI are evolving at an exponential pace making it physically impossible to stay on top of everything
3. Adhering to best practices while growing 10x - Easy to lose sight of fundamental technical principles resulting in overgrown and complex architecture with higher running costs
4. Engaging Tech Consulting Partners with relevant technical skills to increase net value

Hazel Oliver, CTO of Nimbla, has been in the digital space for more than two decades and has travelled across realms of technological transformation. In the above video, Hazel shares her IT journey from working in Traditional Corporations to Digital Natives with the Searce’s Executives. She centres around the requirement for Digital Transformation in Digital Natives. Watch the full video here

The cloud technology available is changing constantly. The advent of containers and Kubernetes means that more can be done with fewer resources and at a lower cost. For digital natives, the Cloud’s ever-changing benefits are significant. Previously, cloud service providers only provided infrastructure; currently, they offer a full range of services, including infrastructure management. This relieves its clients of labour and allows them to focus on value creation rather than mundane responsibilities like keeping the lights on.

Helping Digital Natives Scale Faster

Digital natives need to free themselves from the constraints of technological self-sufficiency if they are to achieve high levels of growth. Digitally native businesses need to accelerate using emerging technologies such as automation and machine learning. By partnering with third parties who have specialist skills, they will be able to make the most of the efficiencies that emerging technologies offer.

The specialist third parties with in-depth knowledge of unused technological opportunities are a powerful way forward for these businesses to increase effectiveness and reduce operational risks.It takes a Digital Native to understand a Digital Native! Searce is a Google Cloud Platform-focused Cloud Native Consulting firm. Searce works with digital native businesses all over the world to help them expand 10x faster by leveraging Cloud, Data, and Artificial Intelligence.

Visit Searce.com to learn more about Searce

Originally published on Business Reporter