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The Threat Behind Digital Transformation

Jonah Kowall

The age of digital disruption is upon us, as the last decade alone has proven in terms of technology and disruption with the progression of organizations like Uber, Airbnb, and Netflix. We are also on the brink of new disruptions in industry, including banking or payments, insurance, healthcare, construction, packaging, and many more. These not only come from startups disrupting a sector, but companies being able to shift from their existing focus areas to build on new opportunities. They’re driven internally or by creating a new spinoff company into additional areas.

The CxO organization is becoming more concerned with outsiders entering into their markets. In the past, the cost of entry into a new market was significantly higher than it is today. Digital businesses and software-driven business models are changing the playing field, for new entrants to shift into new markets. The cost of experimentation continues to decrease, with lower cost computing models that allow for the rental of resources and software.

Open source plays a key role in both building new applications and creating community leverage; and senior executives are taking notice. IBM’s Global C-Suite Study is a great data set consisting of data collected between January and June 2015. They surveyed 5,247 business leaders from 21 industries in more than 70 countries. The sample comprises 818 CEOs, 643 CFOs, 601 CHROs, 1,805 CIOs, 723 CMOs, and 657 COOs :


Today’s native digital generations prefer to work on digital channels versus in-person channels. This ongoing trend has given rise to improvements in customer service, where interactions are delivered across multiple digital channels, ranging from social channels like Twitter and Facebook to text and voice communications. However, there is still more work to be done to unify these platforms more seamlessly. Technologies such as social, chat, and more recently, bots create the personal touch in a more scalable manner, reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction. These trends will continually take hold, personalization and fast touch points are valued by today’s users who seemingly have less time than ever before.

The level of patience and complexity involved in making these channels seamless is an increasing challenge with today’s IT complexity. Your customers will not tolerate failure, and expect technology to just work. IBM’s survey data confirms this trend.


This accelerating trend is what will differentiate those businesses who learn to engage in new and differentiated ways across multiple channels. Companies which lead, versus those that follow have very different perspectives on what will likely transpire during a time of disruption.

In Figure 8 below, those indicated as torchbearers see companies who look for another market to expand into being able to enter these markets quickly as innovators in another segment or market. Similarly, these first-mover companies see the need to enter into new or adjacent markets. For this reason you see most companies creating labs or innovation centers. We increasingly see next generation visibility being required for these new and highly agile software systems. This demand is critical for survival, innovation, and growth.

These experiments can only be done promptly when the organization adopts smaller agile teams across the business and technology groups. Breaking up large, and likely slow moving monolithic organizations, software, and systems into smaller units which operate independently. The ability to experimentation and make decisions on their own.

The companies who lead tend to do this far more frequently than those who follow or are laggards. We see this regularly in our customer base, where a large degree of diversity exists in the autonomy within each team. The question remains as to how this will play out with economic changes or political change.


In summary, while this data and analysis confirm many trends, it shows clearly different and increasingly changed thinking as digital becomes the preferred channel for many businesses. The IBM data also informs that decentralized decision making and experimentation are clearly taking hold, but those who lead are in a different place than those who follow. It will be interesting to see how this progresses with IBMs new survey data.

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The Threat Behind Digital Transformation

Jonah Kowall

The age of digital disruption is upon us, as the last decade alone has proven in terms of technology and disruption with the progression of organizations like Uber, Airbnb, and Netflix. We are also on the brink of new disruptions in industry, including banking or payments, insurance, healthcare, construction, packaging, and many more. These not only come from startups disrupting a sector, but companies being able to shift from their existing focus areas to build on new opportunities. They’re driven internally or by creating a new spinoff company into additional areas.

The CxO organization is becoming more concerned with outsiders entering into their markets. In the past, the cost of entry into a new market was significantly higher than it is today. Digital businesses and software-driven business models are changing the playing field, for new entrants to shift into new markets. The cost of experimentation continues to decrease, with lower cost computing models that allow for the rental of resources and software.

Open source plays a key role in both building new applications and creating community leverage; and senior executives are taking notice. IBM’s Global C-Suite Study is a great data set consisting of data collected between January and June 2015. They surveyed 5,247 business leaders from 21 industries in more than 70 countries. The sample comprises 818 CEOs, 643 CFOs, 601 CHROs, 1,805 CIOs, 723 CMOs, and 657 COOs :


Today’s native digital generations prefer to work on digital channels versus in-person channels. This ongoing trend has given rise to improvements in customer service, where interactions are delivered across multiple digital channels, ranging from social channels like Twitter and Facebook to text and voice communications. However, there is still more work to be done to unify these platforms more seamlessly. Technologies such as social, chat, and more recently, bots create the personal touch in a more scalable manner, reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction. These trends will continually take hold, personalization and fast touch points are valued by today’s users who seemingly have less time than ever before.

The level of patience and complexity involved in making these channels seamless is an increasing challenge with today’s IT complexity. Your customers will not tolerate failure, and expect technology to just work. IBM’s survey data confirms this trend.


This accelerating trend is what will differentiate those businesses who learn to engage in new and differentiated ways across multiple channels. Companies which lead, versus those that follow have very different perspectives on what will likely transpire during a time of disruption.

In Figure 8 below, those indicated as torchbearers see companies who look for another market to expand into being able to enter these markets quickly as innovators in another segment or market. Similarly, these first-mover companies see the need to enter into new or adjacent markets. For this reason you see most companies creating labs or innovation centers. We increasingly see next generation visibility being required for these new and highly agile software systems. This demand is critical for survival, innovation, and growth.

These experiments can only be done promptly when the organization adopts smaller agile teams across the business and technology groups. Breaking up large, and likely slow moving monolithic organizations, software, and systems into smaller units which operate independently. The ability to experimentation and make decisions on their own.

The companies who lead tend to do this far more frequently than those who follow or are laggards. We see this regularly in our customer base, where a large degree of diversity exists in the autonomy within each team. The question remains as to how this will play out with economic changes or political change.


In summary, while this data and analysis confirm many trends, it shows clearly different and increasingly changed thinking as digital becomes the preferred channel for many businesses. The IBM data also informs that decentralized decision making and experimentation are clearly taking hold, but those who lead are in a different place than those who follow. It will be interesting to see how this progresses with IBMs new survey data.

The Latest

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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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 ...