Digital Infrastructure Partners: The Backbone of Ongoing Transformation

Digitalisation is an oft-used buzzword across many industries today. With the plethora of technologies available enabling seamless business agility across processes, many businesses are now digitising what used to be largely manual, paper-based work processes in a bid to become more efficient and to offer an all-round superior digital user experience. 

However, as with many emerging trends, there is a need for strategic guidance around digital transformation. Many businesses are still entrenched in their traditional methods and find it difficult to broach the topic of digitalisation. For example, a 2018 survey by Dell Technologies, Intel, and Vanson Bourne found that only 5% of Singapore companies are ‘digital leaders’ ¹. The rest are still lagging behind the digital curve. Among the top five reasons for not digitalising, lack of inhouse skills and expertise ranked third. Furthermore as of last year, only 57% of SMEs² in Singapore have heard of the term ‘digital transformation’. 

The race to successful digital transformation is a marathon, and this is where digital infrastructure partners can value add, by helping organisations make sense of the increasingly complex digital infrastructure landscape. The pace of the digital economy requires swift adaption and time is of the essence if organisations are looking to succeed in their digital transformation efforts to survive and thrive in this new economic paradigm.  

However, it’s understandable that with new technologies, organisations require new ways of thinking and more complex forms of digital configurations to fully harness the potential of digital transformation. These things take time and require additional support from partners. 

Modern technologies require bespoke IT solutions 

Given the complexity and changing nature of emerging technologies, bespoke IT solutions have almost become a necessity. In the past, technology was a function of the business, however, today, technology is the business. This means that enterprises need to build flexible, agile IT solutions that can keep pace with corporate growth and expansion as well as regulatory regimes and even cyber threats.  

For example, a financial institution which regularly handles sensitive and personal data will need to invest more heavily in robust cybersecurity framework and infrastructure, than perhaps a construction firm. The partner ecosystem for the financial institution will also need to be equally secured.    

This means that both the business, partners and data centre operations need to be on the same page regarding the objectives of each IT deployment in order to achieve the best possible outcome for the customer. 

Further, partners and stakeholders need to follow regulations and be compliant with the latest government policies. Bespoke solutions are critical in order to satisfy legal and regulatory frameworks, such as data sovereignty laws around the world. In these cases, many organisations will require the local expertise of partners and infrastructure providers to pursue their digital transformation within the confines of existing regulatory environments. 

The need to adapt to a new paradigm

With the growing complexity of digital infrastructures, partners will need to adapt to a new paradigm and tailor their offerings to the needs of their end-customers – whether it is flexible contract terms, multi-location offerings or bespoke services. As service providers, partners must not only suggest new upgrades or products, but they must fully understand the business and operational objectives of the client. 

On the other hand, data centre providers must keep in mind that their partners derive strength from their offerings. To keep pace, data centre operators must constantly optimise capabilities by regularly relooking at infrastructure design. By consistently making improvements to operations and design, data centre operators will be able to better support their partners. For example, making improvements in energy efficiency within the data centre, enables a data centre operator to achieve their sustainability goals.  

With the ever-growing complexity of IT deployments, customers’ needs will similarly grow in diversity as well. Data centre operators and partners must make sure that they are well-aligned in their services in order to best meet these needs. It is therefore vital that data centre operators, partners and customers form a cooperative tripartite support system, where views, needs and constructive feedback are freely exchanged. This will ensure that they have the right digital infrastructure to support their growth amid the modern-day digital revolution. 

¹ DELL Technologies, Digital Transformation Index 
² Microsoft Singapore News Center, 23 October 2018, Singapore SMEs who embrace digital transformation expect to see average revenue gains of 26%: ASME-Microsoft study