Digital transformation has been changing the global business landscape in several ways, but one of the most important for organizations is rising customer expectations. The ability to create and deliver digitally-enhanced experiences as well as products and services will be a critical component of an organization’s success.
IDC has been tracking technology spending in the Worldwide Black Book since the 1980s, and you’d be forgiven for thinking there are fewer surprises and unexpected statistics today. The technology industry is now a much more mature sector of the global economy, even compared to as recently as the early 2000s.
Overall IT spending may be more predictable than in the past, as an increasing share of end-user tech spend moves from volatile Capex to relatively stable Opex thanks partly to the growth of cloud and mobile, but the key to gaining competitive advantage still lies in being first to recognise significant shifts, anomalies and surprising trends. Here are just five of them.
Today, enterprises are outsourcing their logistics business process services primarily to lower operating costs and transportation costs, which is not an atypical benefit sought after when outsourcing any business function. Beyond the main driver of cost savings, enterprises are challenged to manage customer expectations by improving product delivery and order visibility, managing risk and compliance, and continuously meeting SLA’s.
For the past 30+ years organizations have purchased technology platforms and deployed them on-premises. Most of these legacy systems create a technical debt that organizations find is a nightmare to manage. Customizations, maintenance, hardware and even version control have put the organization at an operational disadvantage.
There is an often-quoted economic theory that describes the balance that occurs when competitors in a market of a fixed size win or lose share depending on the success or failure of the other. The “zero sum game” (as it is known) has been cited so often since the financial crisis of the late 2000’s slowed global growth, that its continued use is becoming something of a cliché.
