Digital Strategy Needs to Be Enabled with Technology Lifecycle Management

The business and technology environment is polarized on supporting customers preferring to engage with businesses using interactive digital technologies. In some industries these digital forms of interaction enhance traditional business practices, reduce running costs and create new revenue opportunities; in others, digital business models have replaced existing models and some enterprises failed to move fast enough to stay in the game. For example, online and mobile banking has created opportunities for traditional banks to support their customers faster, cheaper and smarter; while the increasing sophistication of the online retail experience now makes it possible to order eye glasses, prescription drugs and even prosthetic limbs from disruptive entities which are blowing away traditional business with the stealth and speed with which Netflix dispatched the hapless Blockbuster video well over a decade ago.

Technology enables digital business models, but provides the means, not the actual outcome

Simply put, the rapid uptake of social, mobile and internet technologies by consumers has outpaced most legacy enterprise technology environments, and most enterprises today have no choice but to rethink their business logic and make the necessary investments in their data and process underpinnings to cater for their digital customers, if they want to stay relevant and competitive.