Tapping into the opportunities of digital transformation

Credit to Author: Annette Clayton| Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2018 02:37:14 +0000

In my conversations with customers, there’s one topic that keeps coming up: digital transformation. Some businesses are digitizing to optimize operations and lower costs, while others are using web-based tools to offer better customer experiences. All are wondering what’s next, and how to be ready for it.

While digital transformation means different things to different people, it is a core initiative for almost any enterprise. It’s also clear that no company can innovate alone — it takes co-innovation and collaboration to make it work. That’s why it’s important to come together to share what’s working, what isn’t, and what lies ahead.

As we look forward to next week’s  2018 Innovation Summit North America, it is clear there is no better time to focus on the opportunities of digital transformation. During the Summit, I won’t just share my own thoughts on the subject; we’ll hear stories from our customers across North America that are transforming their operations, supply chains, products, and services in groundbreaking ways.

Successful transformations around the country

Let’s start with the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, home to a new National Hockey League team and over 160 events per year. A few years ago, stadiums were built with separate systems for power, security, lighting, and so on. These silo-based systems aren’t centrally managed, which constrains flexibility, efficiency, and reliability. The operations team at T-Mobile Arena, who understood these constraints as well as the unfolding opportunities posed by IoT, opted for a single, digitally connected EcoStruxure™ Building platform. This decision afforded T-Mobile Arena the ability to quickly and reliably adjust to ever-changing building needs.

It’s not all about fun and games, though. Schools are also benefiting from digital transformation. On Bainbridge Island, near Seattle, Washington, wind storms produced outages and downtime, which interrupted the education of around 4,000 students. During these outages, network technicians had to scramble to diagnose problems. Now, after adopting a digitally connected power monitoring system based on EcoStruxure IT, alarm notifications are centralized under one dashboard, ensuring rapid responses that keep kids focused on learning.

Strength in numbers

Digital transformations never end, if they’re done right.

What we’ve learned along the way in collaborating with customers is that successful digital transformations are rooted in committed leadership and thoughtful collaborations, beyond the technology that gets deployed. Why? Because digital transformations require change, and change is not always easy. To successfully navigate these changes, we align with alliances and partners in our extended enterprise that are instrumental in offering fresh ideas and crucial competencies to complement what we can deliver. This same spirit of collaboration will be on display at the Innovation Summit.

Fortunately, businesses standing at the crossroads of digital transformations aren’t alone. We’ve already been traveling on this road and we’ve helped customers find their way, too. At Innovation Summit, we, along with our customers, alliances, and partners, will share our strategies, visions, and stories. If you aren’t making the trip to Atlanta, we hope you’ll tune in to our live feed of the Innovation Summit on November 13 & 14.

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