As the digital transformation (DX) trend continues to accelerate due to the COVID-19 crisis, South Korean companies have been looking for ways to carry out digital innovation. “CIO Summit 2021”, which was held on Wednesday, a variety of solutions such as modernization of IT infrastructure core, third-party maintenance service, and cloud-based service operation were presented to achieve DX innovation.
◊Hyosung Information Systems supports data-centered group
Park Seung-kyu, who is a chief consultant at Hyosung Information Systems, presented DX strategies for the new normal era. He said that priorities need to be set for digital innovation and that foundation, methodologies, and structure need to be prepared. According to his explanation, once priorities such as vitalization of digital experience and improvement in operation efficiency are set, a virtuous cycle where modernization of digital cores and data-centered group leads to accelerated digital innovation can be established.
“Companies start their journey on DX by focusing on customer experience (CX) initiatives, and these initiatives contribute to creating profits.” said Park. “This is because these initiatives provide added values by providing DX that is personalized to customers.” Not only does DX innovation improve a company’s employees’ productivity and process efficiency, but it also strengthens experiences of every person and company that is involved with the company.
Park pointed to development of hybrid cloud strategy, buildup of IT network, development of modern architecture, and application portfolio innovation as necessary work for modernization of digital cores. Cloud’s quickness and API’s direct connectivity towards business process support modernization of architecture.
It is a must for a company to build a platform that can collect huge amount of data and is able to perform integrated operation in order to convert the company to be a data-centered group. Park said that entire people from high-ranking executives to individual users who are involved in a group need to understand data and value of analysis and that everyone needs to work together to develop a necessary platform and capabilities and establish a data-centered culture in order to utilize data as assets for competitions.
◊Rimini Street maximizes return on investment through a third-party maintenance service
Executive Director Lee Yong-heng of Rimini Street introduced “digital first” strategies through third-party maintenance service. It is necessary for a company to adjust the life cycle of software (SW) that the company is using according to demands for its business in order to achieve digital innovation and cost reduction at the same time. Third-party maintenance service raises quality of service and reduces cost at the same time.
Third-party maintenance service is able to make budgets for IT more efficient. While it is a full service that includes source codes for users, it guarantees flexibility in upgrades. One company at first paid $2.99 million (3.4 billion KRW) for maintenance service with the vender. However, its cost of maintenance was reduced to $880,000 (1 billion KRW) after using a third-party maintenance service. $2.1 million (2.4 billion KRW) that the company was able to save was reinvested in strategic initiatives.
According to a market research company Gartner, the market for third-party maintenance services is estimated to be worth $1.05 billion in 2023 which will be three times more than what the market was worth in 2019. Gartner emphasized that the fact that third-party maintenance services assist with securing funds for digital innovation, the fact that there is a rapid increase in number of companies introducing third-party maintenance services, and the fact that on-premise customers are preparing long-term plans as they convert to third-party maintenance services.
Director Lee said that third-party maintenance service provides different support and is able to reduce operation cost of enterprise SW and he also emphasized that such service maximizes ROI (Return on Investment) towards current SW and provides competitive advantage and supports business growth.
◊Dell Technologies purposes DX innovation through service-type model
Executive Director Yang Won-seok of Dell Technologies realized that number of companies adopting a cloud environment is rising quickly due to reasons such as fluctuation in business, economic pressure, higher dependence on digital technologies, and change in models for group operation and suggested service-type model as a solution for DX innovation.
“Since the COVID-19 pandemic, industries have entered an era where everything is uncertain.” said Executive Director Yang. “As a result, it has become important for them to have resilience that allows them to take active actions towards external surroundings.” He also predicted that adoption of cloud will become more visible throughout industries as they look to secure quickness in their businesses and resilience and that the cloud service market would also start to expand.
It has become important to accelerate data movement throughout hybrid multi-cloud environments in order to quickly utilize data for business. Companies have been applying AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology depending on amount, diversity, and speed of data and they have been increasing their investments in related technologies.
Service-type model changes how a company obtains and distributes its technologies and allows the company to focus on how it can improve its method of carrying out its business. “Eliminating complexity and risks in cloud environment and maintaining consistency must be considered in order to accelerate innovation.” said Executive Director Yang. “Because a legacy system costs a lot and is very complex, it needs to be converted into a service-type model in order to simplify IT infrastructure.”
Staff Reporter Oh, Dain | ohdain@etnews.com