Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Forward Thinking

Study measures pain points of digital transformation

Firms report disruption as they adopt upgrades such as collocated data centers, cloud computing, and third-party security, Avant says.

Companies following "digital transformation" plans face an array of challenges in four key areas of updating their technology, including compute IT infrastructure, voice infrastructure, network infrastructure, and cybersecurity, an industry study shows.

Many of these organizations see the effort as an "evolve or die" imperative, including steps like shifting from physical, in-house technology platforms to third-party and cloud-based solutions, according to Avant Communications, the Chicago-based technology and infrastructure consulting firm that performed the study.


Avant released its "State of Disruption" report on April 9, including a survey of 300 U.S. enterprise technology leaders at the manager level and above who lead technology purchasing decisions. "We see the pace of change in IT accelerating with enterprises literally struggling to evolve or die," Drew Lydecker, president and co-founder of Avant, said in a release. "From networking infrastructure to cybersecurity to breakthrough technologies likes SD-WAN, we are seeing disruption across the board as organizations in all industries are advancing digital transformation."

That disruption is causing growing pains even as companies double down on their commitment to digital transformation, Avant found. The report examined "why technology leaders are not confident in their companies' ability to fulfill digital transformation initiatives" and found that the top three reasons are: lack of internal IT resources (32 percent), lack of internal IT expertise (24 percent), and lack of sufficient transformation-specific budget (also 24 percent).

For more details on those pains, the study calculated a Rate of Disruption Index (RDI), which represents the amount of transformation from legacy to modern digital technologies that organizations expect to see from the end of 2018 to the end of 2019. By comparing the rates at which disruptive technologies are replacing legacy solutions, the study found that certain transitions can be particularly stressful on particular sectors of the industry. For example:

  • the migration of company data centers from in-house servers to third-party colocation facilities is most disruptive in companies with $100 million to $1 billion in revenue, with those organizations reporting an RDI of 26 percent. (Companies of both greater and lesser size had far less disruption with this metric, all ranked at 7 percent or below.)
  • the move from in-house security resources to third-party managed security services is most disruptive in the e-commerce segment, with a 12 percent RDI. (This compares to 8 percent for financial services, 7 percent for healthcare/medical, 3 percent for consulting/business services, and 0 percent for manufacturing.)
  • the shift from physical servers to cloud-based IT infrastructure is expected to increase more amongst e-commerce companies than any other industry, with a 14 percent RDI. (Disruption in other industries included 8 percent for both financial service and healthcare/medical, 7 percent for consulting/business services, and 4 percent for manufacturing.)

Recent

More Stories

An image of planes circling a globe with lit up nodes. The globe is encircled by stacks of containers and buildings.

Navigating global turbulence

If you feel like your supply chain has been continuously buffeted by external forces over the last few years and that you are constantly having to adjust your operations to tact through the winds of change, you are not alone.

The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals’ (CSCMP’s) “35th Annual State of Logistics Report” and the subsequent follow-up presentation at the CSCMP EDGE Annual Conference depict a logistics industry facing intense external stresses, such as geopolitical conflict, severe weather events and climate change, labor action, and inflation. The past 18 months have seen all these factors have an impact on demand for transportation and logistics services as well as capacity, freight rates, and overall costs.

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

image of laptops and cables to suggest computer hackers

TSA rule would require cyber risk management for railroads

The federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) yesterday proposed to mandate cyber risk management and reporting requirements for certain surface transportation owners and operators, including those running pipelines and railroads.

The notice of proposed rulemaking suggests a new standard that would require that:

Keep ReadingShow less
DHL online shopper report

DHL report shows seven factors about American online shoppers

Online merchants should consider seven key factors about American consumers in order to optimize their sales and operations this holiday season, according to a report from DHL eCommerce.

First, many of the most powerful sales platforms are marketplaces. With nearly universal appeal, 99% of U.S. shoppers buy from marketplaces, ranked in popularity from Amazon (92%) to Walmart (68%), eBay (47%), Temu (32%), Etsy (28%), and Shein (21%).

Keep ReadingShow less
storm track forecast map hurricane rafael

Louisiana and Texas watch Hurricane Rafael approach

Gulf Coast businesses in Louisiana and Texas are keeping a watchful eye on the latest storm to emerge from the Gulf Of Mexico this week, as Hurricane Rafael nears Cuba.

The island nation today is bracing for storm surge, high winds, and destructive waves, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Keep ReadingShow less
white house

Business groups push back on Trump tariff plan

In the face of campaign pledges by Donald Trump to boost tariffs on imports, many U.S. business interests are pushing back on that policy plan following Trump’s election yesterday as president-elect.

U.S. firms are already rushing to import goods before the promised tariff increases take effect, to avoid potential cost increases. That’s because tariffs are paid by the domestic companies that order the goods, not by the foreign nation that makes them.

Keep ReadingShow less