Digital Transformation, DX has been a buzzword for a while but gradually trending up since 2014. This time may be different because COVID-19 has accelerated digital interaction adoption beyond 58% in 2020, with a big cloud migration snowballing. Why now, and how to ride the wave better?
To disrupt or to be disrupted
It is the best of times for innovators, it is the worst of times for conservatives. DX has become very straightforward because of the trend of the big cloud migration. Especially, for industries on the edge of phase change. For example automotive as a century-old industry has been challenged by Tesla, an 18 years old newcomer. To date, Tesla is the No1 carmaker by the market cap. Tesla’s $1T is about 4 times larger than the No2 Toyota’s. Which not only motivates a EV startup gold rush but also a wake-up call for old-timers.
The elephants have to learn the new dance if to survive. For example, Ford & Google announced a partnership to accelerate auto innovation by reinventing the connected car experience this Feb. Because this new digital frontier is too good to miss, other cloud providers are also grabbing lands aggressively. Amazon cashes in the automotive DX by purpose-built AWS. And, MS transforms Azure customers to provide mobility services. As digital interaction is already the mainstream, businesses are bound to change. The only question is by who.
Getting unstuck
It’s not that people like getting stuck. Only, they hate to change more. So, what could be a better way to overcome the inertia against DX? We may take inspiration from the divide-and-conquer algorithm. Instead of one giant leap, it can be easier to take 2 small steps: Digitalization & Business Innovation.
- Digitalization makes automation easier & accelerates the velocity significantly by leveraging the power of software-defined.
- With more workflows digitalized, you can connect the dots in a new way not possible before, and gain new knowledge & insight. New innovations will become obvious by redefining business boundaries.
Act 1: lift & shift
Each journey is surely unique in its own way. Nevertheless, there is an easy first step to getting started. Lift-and-shift, LaS is pretty straightforward by using virtual machines on the cloud as an alternative for new physical machines. You can spin on any number of virtual machines quickly on demand. Especially as pandemic causes the shortage of chips, you can skip weeks of waiting.
For example, pandemic makes on-boarding new tech. workers slow. Especially for workers depends on powerful machines to build software. Android System Development on the Cloud proofs the LaS is possible & even beneficial for developers. It at least shortens the lead time to add new machines, increases flexibility to scale up & down on demand, and eliminates almost all initial costs. Bonus: it makes working from anywhere easier. And the barrier is much lower as even high schoolers can build Android devices via a browser.
As soon as you taste the power of the cloud, you can start to see many new opportunities to reinvent the current workflows to unleash the power of Cloud Native. What are you waiting for 😉?
Full Disclosure
The opinions stated here are my own, not those of my company. They are mostly extrapolations from public information. I don’t have insider knowledge of those companies, nor a whatever expert.
