The Age of Digital Transformation

Meg Whitman, CEO, Hewlett Packard
Enterprise

Although we’ve been anticipating it for years, I think we can all agree that the digital revolution is now transforming every aspect of our lives—at home and in business.
Take travel, for example. When was the last time you used a travel agent to purchase a plane ticket? We have travel websites now.
And banking. Why go to a brick-and-mortar branch when you can deposit a check, pay your bills, or transfer money with a smartphone app?
At the same time, the digital transformation is moving deeper into the industrial realm, speeding the expansion of the Internet of Things and opening new frontiers in artificial intelligence and machine learning to help businesses innovate faster, smarter, and without fear. It is now a data-driven, app-powered, hyper-connected world where user experience rapidly determines winners and losers; where new markets and new competitors can appear almost overnight; and where established practices and processes are constantly challenged.

Follow the leaders, big and small

We’ve reached a point where the rapid advancement of innovation and technology is making digital transformation accessible to every company of every size, giving organizations incredible opportunities to reimagine their businesses..

"The rapid advancement of innovation and technology is giving organizations incredible opportunities to reimagine their businesses."

It’s the reason you see long-established companies like Boeing, GE and Home Depot fundamentally remaking themselves for a digital, idea-driven world. It’s the reason you see new companies like DropBox, Docker and Mesosphere rapidly creating new markets. And for every startup success like Uber, Nest, SpaceX and Airbnb, there are hundreds of companies—thousands probably—who may be under the radar today but are turning new ideas into game-changing products, services and customer experiences.
A report by the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that by 2025, digitization could add up to $2.2 trillion to annual U.S. GDP by 2025—and probably much more. But the same report revealed that the U.S. economy as a whole has reached only 18 percent of its digital potential
What this tells me is that even with all the digital progress we’ve made, the most profound and disruptive opportunities still lie ahead.

Composing the future

One of the most important enablers of the next phase of the digital revolution is an emerging technology called composable infrastructure. Companies are using composable infrastructure to bridge from traditional IT to multi-cloud environments..
Let’s go back to the banking example. A bank needs to deploy and constantly update its mobile app from its datacenter without worrying about physical resources. Using a composable infrastructure platform, the bank’s IT team can instantly and continuously provision compute, storage, and fabric in minutes, and flex those resources dynamically to meet the needs of each application release. When resources are no longer needed, they are simply returned to the pool, helping to reduce costs of over-provisioning.

So what does your business need to do?

Digital transformation isn’t only a way to stay competitive—it is a pre-requisite for success in a 21st Century economy. It is a requirement that touches every element of your business, from the datacenter to your customer relationships. It’s not just the future, but the present.
"Digital transformation isn’t only a way to stay competitive—it is a pre-requisite for success in a 21st Century economy."To drive digital transformation and thrive in today’s marketplace, you need a technology partner with the vision and breadth to create the best possible future for your business.