From startups to multinational corporations, digital transformation has become a necessity. At this point, it is unlikely that anyone in the business world has not heard this message. Digital transformation is about how firms can stay relevant and compete in an increasingly digital world.
A company may undertake digital transformation for a variety of reasons. However, the most likely explanation is that they must: It’s a matter of life and death. The capacity of a business to quickly adjust to supply chain interruptions, time to market demands, and rapidly changing consumer expectations has become crucial in the aftermath of the pandemic.
In collaboration with Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates, this new study from Contino highlights digital transformation pioneers from throughout Europe. From digitally engaging with customers to develop teams capable of producing and scaling new technologies like cloud-native infrastructure, they provide noteworthy insights here contino.io/insights/top-20-dx-innovators.
Strategies From Digital Transformation Innovators
Debra Bailey
Debra Bailey joined O2, London, UK, as the Chief Information Officer in the middle of a digital transformation process. This process involved a complete replacement of their core platforms and tech stack while implementing the 5G network. She noticed that the transformation was contractor-heavy and had different IT and business teams executing it.
Debra decided to observe the project from a strategic perspective and initiate an ambitious model of aligning technology with business objectives. This new model emphasised not just the technology but people and processes. It aimed to get rid of duplication, create IT standards across teams and resolve gaps.
Along with this, her leadership advocated for behavioural change alongside technological adaptations. These initiatives resulted in seamless technology delivery. Less than a year in, O2 has already reached their goal of a 10% lift in speed-to-value.
Jon Braithwaite
In October 2019, Jon was named CIO of Compass Group UK & Ireland. Jon’s effort to digitise and simplify their business operations has seen the company shift away from antiquated technology into a data- and insight-driven framework that provides clients with excellent service.
The initial step in the transition was to restructure and migrate essential systems to the cloud. Jon used AWS to connect different systems to interact with one another, resulting in important insights for the company and its customers via dashboards.
This has paved the way for a big data and analytics drive. Consequently, Compass Group UK&I is better able to respond swiftly to business and customer demands through omnichannel digital solutions and insight-driven activities.
Shakeel Butt
Shakeel joined Green Flag, an insurance-based roadside assistance firm, in 2018. In his role as Chief Technology Officer, he spearheaded a comprehensive front-to-back redesign. Shakeel presented a transformation path for the firm based on a cloud-native ecosystem built from the ground up. The whole stack is serverless, stateless microservices and API-driven.
Shakeel is replacing each aspect of the value chain with a cloud-native solution now that the platform is live. He has persuaded the entire firm to function as an agile enterprise, not just the IT department. Following this, Green Flag can rapidly roll out new features to provide clients with a genuinely unique experience.
Fumbi Chima
Fumbi was the CIO of Adidas, Germany, for two years before joining BECU, a Seattle-based credit union, in the same capacity. She is always emphasising the value of the client. Her philosophy is to first understand her customers’ needs and then develop solutions that meet those needs while reducing all potential friction points. She led a transition towards a hyper-product-centric operational style at Adidas to support her vision. Data was a significant strategic aid in gaining better consumer knowledge, allowing Adidas to create comprehensive customer avatars.
The strategy has resulted in a higher throughput of superior products that are more personalised and sensitive to the client’s needs. The new model’s flexibility enhances Adidas’ capacity to pivot, which is vital in today’s environment of rapid change, and she intends to emulate this technique at BECU.
A Case For Why Businesses Should Adopt Cloud-native Technology
The strategies employed by these tech leaders emphasise the advantages of adopting cloud infrastructure. Enterprises can easily automate a significant number of processes involved in designing and implementing their digital infrastructure using a cloud-native application architecture.
Scaling, changing, and upgrading individual features or modules inside an application is straightforward when components are built as microservices, rather than having to rebuild the entire thing from the start.
Furthermore, cloud-native apps are naturally extendable through APIs, allowing them to be effortlessly linked with various reporting and analytical tools to derive insights that businesses may utilise to make better decisions.
Because market dynamics evolve rapidly, businesses may need to update or roll back new features on their consumer-facing digital channels as soon as they’re released to make room for newer versions.
Companies can manage upgrades and dynamic modifications to software seamlessly with cloud-native applications. The cloud application may be immediately made available to end-users at significantly lower prices by incrementally adding changes.
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