The challenge is to shift from legacy to digital model with minimum disruption

In the background of the converging forces of social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) which is driving the emergence of third platform, there is an increasing trend of customers preferring subscription-based ICT services as against building of ICT infrastructure. With the role of CIOs changing from managing IT to being business enablers they tend to prefer a model that would provide them more visibility vis-à-vis the earlier model of ‘control.’ The customer expects an ICT infrastructure service delivery model to be built around the philosophy of less hardware, less license and less people.

The Make in India and Digital India programs are huge opportunities and motivations for enterprises to expedite their own transformation to digital enterprises.

The challenge before enterprises is their ability to shift from the legacy model to the digital model with minimum disruption to their current business and at the same time exploiting the huge opportunities in the digital market place.

The key technology trends driving the new ICT services delivery models are, converged infrastructure, and software defined everything.

Enterprises are fast adopting the digital themes of SMAC very successfully. By following the social media application framework, the new age business applications are also built around the theme of collaboration and not just access of data and information. The use of smart mobile devices backed up by faster mobile access technologies is fast outpacing the use of desktops and laptops, and is forcing application providers to re-look at the way their products are designed.

The ever-evolving digital model is providing a significant opportunity for small and medium enterprises to compete with their bigger competitors.

The pay-as-you-go model provides head room for enterprises to optimize their investments and scale-up as the business grows. The reason that enterprises still use license-based model is simply because their current application provider is not offering them a pay-as-you-go model.

The ICT buyers should evaluate providers who are committed to the emerging trends by means of providing ICT subscription based services built on the principles of lower cost, higher agility, faster scalability and security with bundled services of management and visibility.