It Takes a Village to Achieve Digital Transformation

… not with each other. With the stakes as high as they are with getting DX right, an organization doesn’t have the luxury of letting two parties not work together at an optimal level to support their needs. An IT vendor and its partner(s) supporting a given customer must invest time and resources on an ongoing basis to ensure they are aligned, cross trained and have the tools and assets to be able to deliver a holistic solution.

Longevity and Viability: A sound DX strategy isn’t one act or one project, but instead a series of initiatives that are carried out over the long term, over many years. It therefore stands to reason that one should ask: Can I trust this team to be there over the long run? Choose poorly, and you may introduce unintended consequences such as starting over, technology incompatibility and lost time and budget. A leading indicator of longevity and viability is often the investment each party makes in the other. If an IT vendor demonstrates it is investing in a partner program, and partners are actively engaged in vendor events and enablement, it stands to reason they will form a strong team built to deliver value over the long term.

While the benefits of evolving your organization to become more digitally advanced are numerous, the path forward isn’t always clear. Often, the difference between success and failure is determined by choosing the right ecosystem of IT experts to shepherd you along the way. These “villages” are frequently critical to help you achieve a meaningful return on investment while reducing the risk associated with time to value.

Joe Garber is the global head of strategy and solutions at Micro Focus, where he drives strategic efforts to help customers map technology to commercial needs as a step toward digital transformation, particularly in the critical areas of hybrid IT, enterprise DevOps, predictive analytics and security, risk and governance. He works alongside customers and partners, internal cross-functional teams and industry thought leaders to recognize and interpret technology trends. Part of his role includes staying up to date on evolving technologies (cloud, mobile, IoT, big data, data science) and competitive market activities, as well as mapping use cases, and uncovering best practices to facilitate technology value capture and creation. Follow him on LinkedIn or @MicroFocus.