Though this may sound like a cliché, our world is changing at a rapid rate. And with that change comes an entirely new way of interacting with the world. We live in an era where everything from personal time, to social issues, to politics, commerce, and more, are all managed through technology. We consume and interact with fervour in a globally connected society that influences every aspect of our lives.
We see this especially in business. The newly introduced term of “digital transformation” has quickly gone from buzzword to a tangible reality—a driver that encompasses the human element of brand experience, consumer expectations, and so on. It’s this influence that’s now driving economical change around the globe as companies struggle to meet the new digital demands and expectations of their customers.
Then, of course, there’s omnichannel customer engagement—a direct result of digital transformation. The old guard of commerce and even eCommerce has now shifted with the tides of social and technological change. Consumers expect more, and that is the crux: expect. Meeting customers’ expectations of how they interact with retail is driving business across all vertical markets. After all, if you can order a coffee through an app, why can’t you order a car the same way?
All this change firmly rests on the foundation of the IT infrastructure that maintains the modern business environment. It’s this demand on infrastructure that causes the ripple effect that is digital transformation. For instance, an app can be designed and built—but what of the outcome? Does it need to speak to a multitude of disparate systems? Does it create exponential data growth? Who accounts for that in the IT hardware world?
It’s for all these reasons that we bring you this issue of DirectionIT Magazine. In this issue, we tackle the subjects that interconnect from digital transformation, to cloud and data centers, to security implications, to how it affects traditional infrastructure, and more.
As always, we hope you enjoy our Magazine and that it imparts at least a little bit of insight into our collectively complicated small world.
Enjoy!