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Gartner: 3 Scale Accelerators to Drive Digital Transformation

CIOs trying to lead digital transformation at the speed needed to succeed need a mix of three scale accelerators, according to Gartner, Inc. The three scale accelerators include: digital dexterity, network effect technologies, and an industrialized digital platform.

During the opening keynote today at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, Gartner analysts emphasized that scale is not just about size, it occurs up, across and out. Scaling Up allows for gaining efficiencies. Scaling Across quickly takes capabilities learned from one organization into another, while Scaling Out interconnects internal and external platforms and ecosystems.

First Scale Accelerator: Digital Dexterity

Digital dexterity is about a new organizational design and a new talent mix for a new working environment – a high-performing digital workplace. Organizations must change internally to change externally.

"To scale, we need people with digital dexterity. People who are collaborative, agile, analytical, innovative and creative," said Tina Nunno, VP and Gartner Fellow. "People who have both the ability and the desire to exploit existing and emerging technologies for better business outcomes."

A digitally dexterous culture requires three building blocks:

■ Technology

■ Engagement

■ Diversity

"It’s time to build your technology for user experience and double down on experiential skills, such as design thinking, guided navigation, and a/b testing. These all become your go-to tools," said Leigh McMullen, Managing VP at Gartner. "Invest in SaaS applications that make it easy for employees to do for themselves – things like data visualization and application integration. Exploit virtual personal assistants to free everyone from low-value tasks."

The second building block is engagement. "Make people and engagement the design center for your technology and your processes," Nunno said. "For that we can use the science of behavioral change. For example, by using peer advocates, trusted influencers, and social norming, we get closer to creating the right employee experience."

The third element to build a culture of digital dexterity is diversity. CIOs should look at exploiting diversity in all forms, such as diverse data, diverse talents, diverse suppliers, diverse backgrounds, and diverse cultures. "Diversity allows us to overcome all forms of bias to harness the power of the crowd and digital," McMullen said.

Second Scale Accelerator: Network Effect Technologies

Network effect technologies transform the CIO’s work from making tactical technology decisions into building strategic platforms. This unique set of technologies creates virtuous patterns of growth, where waves of disruption build upon each other, exponentially. Three network effect technologies to focus on for 2018 include: the Internet of Things (IoT), application programming interfaces (APIs), and artificial intelligence (AI).

"IoT scales the physical world. IoT allows us to sense, measure and mediate everything from oil pipelines to human veins. It allows us to make better decisions faster," Nunno said. "As the number of connected devices grows, you go from no information to abundant data. The network effect of IoT quickly converts individual objects into systems.

Nunno also explained the type of people to get the job done. She said, "Find people who are able and eager to embed all types of intelligence in IoT. Engage data management professionals to ensure you have diverse source data. Leverage the digital dexterity of citizen data scientists."

While IoT scales the physical world, APIs scale relationships into ecosystems. They enable CIOs to easily connect partners, employees, and even competitors into a vibrant, webscale network that unlocks value for everyone.

"Value emerges slowly, and then it accelerates quickly as more participants are added to the ecosystem and new APIs are discovered and used. That is the network effect," said McMullen.

With IoT scaling the physical world, and APIs scaling relationships, think of AI as scaling people. Gartner believes that AI will help people, not replace them. Certain jobs have been lost in every technology revolution, and new jobs have been created. AI is no different. Gartner analysts said the real potential with AI is the augmentation of people.

"AI’s best use today and well into the future will be to augment human capabilities," Nunno said. "A human machine is smarter than either by themselves. The machine scales the person. The person scales the machine."

Third Scale Accelerator: Industrialize the Digital Platform

The industrialized digital platform unleashes the digital dexterity of your workforce, and it unlocks the potential of network effect technology. To industrialize means using a digital platform to create new digital market places.

"The beauty of the industrialized digital platform is that it enables you to create value in all directions at scale: up, across and out," Nunno said. "Value creation used to be one directional: from the organization to customers. Now value creation can scale in all directions, from anyone, anywhere."

Organizations will need to set their digital ambition by determining what kind of organization they want to be. Without digital business ambition, organizations just have a collection of projects.

Next, CIOs should build on their legacy systems. They should combine their modernized legacy applications and their digital platform for massive integration complexity on a massive scale. They should integrate their platforms internally, as well as with external ecosystem partners. Integrating externally is key because top performing CIOs expect to double the number of important ecosystem partners they have during the next two years.

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Gartner: 3 Scale Accelerators to Drive Digital Transformation

CIOs trying to lead digital transformation at the speed needed to succeed need a mix of three scale accelerators, according to Gartner, Inc. The three scale accelerators include: digital dexterity, network effect technologies, and an industrialized digital platform.

During the opening keynote today at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, Gartner analysts emphasized that scale is not just about size, it occurs up, across and out. Scaling Up allows for gaining efficiencies. Scaling Across quickly takes capabilities learned from one organization into another, while Scaling Out interconnects internal and external platforms and ecosystems.

First Scale Accelerator: Digital Dexterity

Digital dexterity is about a new organizational design and a new talent mix for a new working environment – a high-performing digital workplace. Organizations must change internally to change externally.

"To scale, we need people with digital dexterity. People who are collaborative, agile, analytical, innovative and creative," said Tina Nunno, VP and Gartner Fellow. "People who have both the ability and the desire to exploit existing and emerging technologies for better business outcomes."

A digitally dexterous culture requires three building blocks:

■ Technology

■ Engagement

■ Diversity

"It’s time to build your technology for user experience and double down on experiential skills, such as design thinking, guided navigation, and a/b testing. These all become your go-to tools," said Leigh McMullen, Managing VP at Gartner. "Invest in SaaS applications that make it easy for employees to do for themselves – things like data visualization and application integration. Exploit virtual personal assistants to free everyone from low-value tasks."

The second building block is engagement. "Make people and engagement the design center for your technology and your processes," Nunno said. "For that we can use the science of behavioral change. For example, by using peer advocates, trusted influencers, and social norming, we get closer to creating the right employee experience."

The third element to build a culture of digital dexterity is diversity. CIOs should look at exploiting diversity in all forms, such as diverse data, diverse talents, diverse suppliers, diverse backgrounds, and diverse cultures. "Diversity allows us to overcome all forms of bias to harness the power of the crowd and digital," McMullen said.

Second Scale Accelerator: Network Effect Technologies

Network effect technologies transform the CIO’s work from making tactical technology decisions into building strategic platforms. This unique set of technologies creates virtuous patterns of growth, where waves of disruption build upon each other, exponentially. Three network effect technologies to focus on for 2018 include: the Internet of Things (IoT), application programming interfaces (APIs), and artificial intelligence (AI).

"IoT scales the physical world. IoT allows us to sense, measure and mediate everything from oil pipelines to human veins. It allows us to make better decisions faster," Nunno said. "As the number of connected devices grows, you go from no information to abundant data. The network effect of IoT quickly converts individual objects into systems.

Nunno also explained the type of people to get the job done. She said, "Find people who are able and eager to embed all types of intelligence in IoT. Engage data management professionals to ensure you have diverse source data. Leverage the digital dexterity of citizen data scientists."

While IoT scales the physical world, APIs scale relationships into ecosystems. They enable CIOs to easily connect partners, employees, and even competitors into a vibrant, webscale network that unlocks value for everyone.

"Value emerges slowly, and then it accelerates quickly as more participants are added to the ecosystem and new APIs are discovered and used. That is the network effect," said McMullen.

With IoT scaling the physical world, and APIs scaling relationships, think of AI as scaling people. Gartner believes that AI will help people, not replace them. Certain jobs have been lost in every technology revolution, and new jobs have been created. AI is no different. Gartner analysts said the real potential with AI is the augmentation of people.

"AI’s best use today and well into the future will be to augment human capabilities," Nunno said. "A human machine is smarter than either by themselves. The machine scales the person. The person scales the machine."

Third Scale Accelerator: Industrialize the Digital Platform

The industrialized digital platform unleashes the digital dexterity of your workforce, and it unlocks the potential of network effect technology. To industrialize means using a digital platform to create new digital market places.

"The beauty of the industrialized digital platform is that it enables you to create value in all directions at scale: up, across and out," Nunno said. "Value creation used to be one directional: from the organization to customers. Now value creation can scale in all directions, from anyone, anywhere."

Organizations will need to set their digital ambition by determining what kind of organization they want to be. Without digital business ambition, organizations just have a collection of projects.

Next, CIOs should build on their legacy systems. They should combine their modernized legacy applications and their digital platform for massive integration complexity on a massive scale. They should integrate their platforms internally, as well as with external ecosystem partners. Integrating externally is key because top performing CIOs expect to double the number of important ecosystem partners they have during the next two years.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...