Organisations across the region are accelerating their Digital Transformation strategies and, as a result, are looking for infrastructure that will future-proof their operations. Mohammad Al-Jallad, Chief Technology Officer and Director, Middle East and Africa at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, tells us about why organisations need to consider a consumption-based model to unlock the true benefits of Digital Transformation.
How are organisations across the region planning their Digital Transformation strategies?
It’s fair to say 2020 has challenged us all like no other year in recent memory. COVID-19 has caused organisations to urgently examine their long-term strategies with a view to ultimately survive these turbulent times.
Some industries have been hit worse than others, and many are still facing difficult decisions about the road ahead.
One thing is clear though – organisations across the world are looking to digitalisation more than ever and this region is no different.
Those that had earmarked Digital Transformation as a strategic objective in the future have now shifted their priorities to make this an imperative. And in an uncertain world, where face-to-face contact seems a little like a distant memory, this reliance on digital tools is only likely to increase.
Enterprises now seek agility and scalability to enable them to quickly respond to customer demands and adapt to a changing technology landscape. Ultimately, this will require enterprises to invest in digital tools and instil a ‘digital’ culture.
How important is infrastructure in enabling organisations to digitally transform?
At the core of any successful Digital Transformation is a re-examination of an organisation’s infrastructure. This is a crucial element which companies use to build and deploy applications used by their customer base, workforce and supply chain.
Modern organisations need to ensure their infrastructure is able to support the likes of Big Data, AI, mobile and Edge Computing, while keeping constant agility at front of mind.
This means big decisions on infrastructure models.
What is ‘Everything-as-a-Service’?
According to IDC, by 2020, consumption-based IT procurement in data centres will have eclipsed traditional procurement through improved ‘as-a-Service’ models, accounting for as much as 40% of enterprises’ IT infrastructure spending.
Responding to the need for agile operations, enterprises are increasingly looking for infrastructure models that better align their IT infrastructure spending with IT consumption.
It means we’re seeing a shift from CAPEX to OPEX for infrastructure spending, taking the pressure off IT leaders who have historically had to intensively strategically plan for their required demand. Clearly, this approach doesn’t allow for that much-needed agility in order to respond to changing business priorities.
There are many factors which are driving organisations to evaluate consumption-based models and the public cloud has benefited as a result. Futurum has stated that it envisions this consumption-based trend coming to on-premises infrastructure deployment models in the next three to five years as client expectation transforms.
It’s an approach that enables businesses to scale and respond to pressures or changing demands but also being in control of spending and reducing wastage.
What is HPE Greenlake and how is it helping organisations?
We know that the vast majority of apps and data are things like ERP and CRM – ‘systems of record’ that run the enterprise – and there are various reasons why these must be located in data centres and colocations, therefore lacking the agility of the modern cloud experience.
Greenlake enables organisations to bring that cloud speed, agility and an as-a-Service model to where their apps and data are today. This ultimately enables them to transform the way they do business with one experience and one operating model across their distributed clouds, for apps and data at the Edge, in colocations and in the data centre.
Key elements of this include:
Pay per use – Pay-per-use and financial flexibility for new ventures and business operations, so you can free up capital and boost operational and financial flexibility
Scale up and down – HPE speeds insights for organisations to unlock data’s value with pay-per-use, scale-up-and-down freedom
Simplified IT – Centralised operations and insights across your hybrid estate from a single intuitive self-service platform, HPE Greenlake Central. Get a unified view, monitor usage, cost performance, compliance and more.
Managed for you – Offload monitoring and management of your on-premises cloud and public clouds, securely managed from our world-class IT operations centres helping you free up your resources to be more productive.
The cloud experience has shaped what business leaders expect of IT. HPE GreenLake delivers cloud economics on-premises, a pay-per-use model with no capital needed up front and no overprovisioning of infrastructure.
Ultimately, this enables those core requirements of business agility, simpler IT, lower IT costs and proper control, providing a true hybrid experience that enables Digital Transformation.
