How can your business benefit from digital transformation? (Guest blog from Hyve Managed Hosting)

Author: Luke White, Senior Cloud Consultant at Hyve Managed Hosting

Digital transformation is a way of keeping your business relevant and ahead of the curve by adopting technologies that make every day working life more efficient or effective. Technology is used not just to replicate an existing service, but to use it to transform that service into something better.

Cloud-enabled digital transformation can take the form of migrating from on-premise to the cloud, migrating from one cloud solution or provider to another, or adopting a new cloud model such as hybrid cloud. A carefully considered and well-executed digital transformation can make your business more efficient and productive, optimising your resources and improving your bottom line.

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation uses technology to drive the business forward by integrating digital technologies into all aspects of operations. This could include cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and automation. Integrating these technologies involves evaluating and restructuring existing processes and strategies in order to fully leverage their capabilities.  

As technology constantly evolves, businesses need to embrace the latest developments to stay competitive. The IDC predicts that by the end of 2027, digital transformation spending will reach 3.9 trillion USD worldwide, a compound annual growth rate of 16.1%. It is clear that digital transformation will be the centre of many business strategies in the years to come.

Because every business is so diverse, digital transformation projects will differ for every company. For companies that have not traditionally centred technology, digital transformation could include migrating all or part of their workloads from on-premise to the cloud. For more technologically minded companies, digital transformations incorporate cutting-edge technological updates into their operations.

Digital transformation can take many different forms, but overall the aim will be to incorporate new technology to improve processes and cost-efficiency for the business.

What are the benefits of cloud-enabled digital transformation for businesses?

Cloud plays a central role in digital transformation, especially as major tech trends such as Internet of Things (IoT) and AI are driven by cloud.

Cloud-enabled digital transformation can take many forms. These could include migrating from on-premise to cloud infrastructure, adopting a High Performance Computing (HPC) server solution to run a heavy AI workload, or moving to a hybrid cloud separating workloads into the best suited environments.

The cloud helps to transform businesses because it is so agile and flexible - it is possible to easily add resources to servers and move applications. It is also hugely cost-effective as users only pay for the resources that they use, as and when they require them.

There is a growing need for services and applications that are easy to access, navigate and use on any device. The cloud enables users to work remotely and collaboratively from anywhere, which is essential for any modern business.

Cloud solutions help businesses accelerate and streamline their day-to-day processes, creating a better experience for customers and employees.

Security is also a key motivation for many digital transformation projects. With managed cloud, businesses can protect their data by benefitting from several layers of infrastructure security, secure data centres and protection against threats or DDoS attacks.

A successful cloud-enabled digital transformation - Persimmon Homes

Persimmon Homes, one of the UK’s most successful house-building companies, undertook a significant digital transformation project, virtualising 100% of its infrastructure. With a business-critical customer-facing website, Persimmon required the top quality in their infrastructure. Their previous hosting solution was not meeting this requirement, with numerous outages affecting their customer experience.
Their digital transformation included migrating to a managed hosting solution with Hyve. Planning was essential in this transformation, allowing the migration to take place with zero downtime.

6 months on from the completion of their digital transformation, Persimmon Homes had achieved cost-savings of around £8000, in addition to greatly increased responsivity and performance on their site.

‘The Hyve solution is rock solid, and we had a seamless migration experience,” Lance Evans, Digital Solutions Manager at Persimmon commented. “Our infrastructure is so much more scalable now as we’re able to predict costs ahead of time, driving home the value proposition that underpins our business mentality.’

Read full details of Persimmon Homes’ digital transformation project in our case study.

Addressing problems businesses face with digital transformation

True digital transformation requires in-depth reviewing of current infrastructure, planning, and implementing solutions. This can be a lengthy process for businesses. Additionally, digital transformation can mean so many different things, and a lot of businesses are confused about how to approach the project.

When planning any digital transformation, you should assess your unique business goals and challenges,and any industry requirements. This will narrow down your options and give you a clearer idea on your strategy. An experienced provider will work with you to address your concerns, answer your questions, and make the process as efficient as possible.

Some businesses are still resistant to change. They could feel that taking on a digital transformation project is risky, or the project is too involved. Often legacy equipment and software has been in place for years and the migration and setup to new systems could be off-putting. A detailed project plan ensures that the process is as streamlined as possible to avoid these issues.

Businesses may be cautious about undertaking a large digital transformation project due to a lack of in-house understanding or expertise on the new technologies. Incorporating a managed cloud solution in your digital transformation eliminates the need for an in-house technical team. Managed hosting providers take control of your servers and systems, giving you all of the benefits of cloud while leaving you to focus on your business.

Article originally published by Hyve Managed Hosting.

Hyve Managed Hosting is a global, fully managed hosting provider with a passion for exceptional customer service. Adopting a customer-centric approach, Hyve delivers a range of managed hosting services, from mission-critical private cloud and enterprise cloud to colocation and security services. Hyve’s engineers become an extension of any business, excelling in tailor-made solutions and centralised management.