In today’s digital world, businesses must engage in continuous innovation to succeed in any competitive market. To make matters worse, the Covid 19 pandemic caught the world on its toes; many companies were pushed to the brink, with some having to suspend operations because they were not positioned to be digital and could not embrace technology changes due to the pandemic. However, organizations are now looking to reinvent with technology, but most find it challenging to do so.
Digital transformation is a continuous process and not a one-time solution. However, many businesses treat it as the later. That’s why most reinvention processes are failing before they even begin. Therefore, IT leaders must adopt the right technology and approach to ensure a successful transformation.
So, where do you start?
Choosing the right technology is great, but that’s only the beginning. You need a scalable roadmap. In this article, we’ll discuss the top 5 technological approaches to reinventing your business.
1. How can I help customers through better user experience technology?
Customers’ expectations are constantly changing, but most businesses fail to change with them. Keeping up with constantly evolving user demands is no mean feat, and it’s easy to see why a lot of companies can fail. In fact, in a survey involving IT managers and senior developers, a large percentage say providing a great user experience is expensive to implement in enterprise/IBM i applications.
However, providing a great user experience is mandatory as customers have come to expect certain UI features and are used to a new generation of smart user-centric devices that have significantly enhanced usability. Before presenting new solutions to users, businesses must first ask, “what’s in it for me?” from the end-user perspective. If your solutions do not increase your users’ speed, productivity, efficiency, or ROI, they won’t use them. Gaining user adoption is critical, and you cannot achieve that without providing a better user experience.
It is also important to note that fueling the constantly changing customer demands is technology. Emerging technologies are shaping the way users solve problems and how they interact with businesses. But the delivery of a great user experience in such an environment can be very challenging and expensive to achieve with a traditional development process. You need to adopt technology that’ll enable a quick response to customer needs. Preferably a low code platform like LANSA. This platform enables your developers to build applications faster, without all the complexity. In the same vein. LANSA is easy to use. With its multiple deployment and migration capabilities, you can provide a better experience for your users by deploying your applications anywhere. For example, single or multitier Windows, Linux, and IBM i (System i, iSeries, AS/400) servers.
2. How can I use technology to help my employees thrive through modernization and migration?
For most organizations, modernization often takes a back seat. If it’s working, why fix it? Just because something gets you from point A to point B does not mean it’s the best way. There’s a need to reach point B faster in today’s economy, and your older processes can’t help you achieve that. Therefore, you must modernize. According to research, money spent on digital transformation and technology will reach $2.3 trillion in 2023. In other words, if you don’t modernize, you risk getting left behind.
So how do you begin modernization? It starts with a modernization strategy. You don’t just modernize for the sake of it. You need to identify areas where improvements are needed. Some situations do not require new apps, and modernization, in this case, can mean simply adding functionality to existing screens. The key to success is investing in application modernization projects that result in a faster time to market, a better customer experience, and ultimately a higher ROI.
Another points to consider for success in your application modernization project is “Choosing the Right Technology.” Your modernization tools go a long way to determining the success of your project. Some organizations resolve to hiring more developers whenever there’s a need to incorporate new improvements or build new applications that require a different developer skillset. That usually results in a slower time to market, amongst other cons, as new developers’ onboarding process takes time. In this case, you need a technology that enables you to quickly add improvements and build modern applications without hiring new developers. With LANSA, you can leverage your existing developer skills to building new applications.
Some IT departments that use older development languages (like COBOL, RPG, PowerBuilder, or Visual Basic) seem to get caught in a self-sustaining downward spiral. It may start with a few developers who don’t have the opportunity or simply refuse to learn anything new. User requests for modernization and innovation are not met, and this eventually results in shadow IT — users creating their own solutions. The ERP solution, the platform it runs on, and even the developers that support it develop a “negative legacy” image. The system officially goes into ‘maintenance mode,’ and the company focuses efforts on getting off the platform and starting from scratch with something new.
Bemis Manufacturing decided to reverse that trend by capitalizing on its existing infrastructure and redeveloping where it needed to. The Bemis IT team re-trained in LANSA and has delivered one successful project after another. Four IT college graduates joined the team and familiarized themselves with LANSA in just a few weeks. The business solutions the team delivered with LANSA have resulted in productivity gains of over 20% and contributed to more effective decision-making.
Bemis Manufacturing case study using LANSA
3. Should I automate redundant processes?
Primarily, most enterprises rely on the IT department for the smooth running of business operations. However, a depleting developer pool and human inefficiency have left many with broken or redundant business processes due to the unavailability of the right personnel. Many organizations lose resources by leveraging employees to perform tasks they could easily automate. What’s more, businesses are facing an increasing demand to execute more labor-intensive processes faster. Therefore, the aim is to automate more manual processes, thereby reducing the dependencies on the IT department.
You can automate redundant processes using low-code platforms like LANSA. This platform supports business automation by allowing you to build new solutions with integrated automation tools faster.
4. How can I utilize APIs to turbocharge my existing infrastructure?
There is a huge variety of digital transformation solutions a business can utilize. Unfortunately, the choices are limited when it comes to affordability, simple implementation, and rapid, measurable ROI. One option, however, is powerful low-code development platforms that allow companies to leverage APIs in designing and building custom applications for their specific needs.
The API is another incredibly accessible technology that can also provide a company with genuinely amazing capabilities that were unimaginable for a small or medium company just a few years ago. Application programming interfaces (APIs) are software interfaces. They act as a connection between different computers and software. APIs help developers establish communication between apps and third-party services and platforms. They serve as an important tool, allowing developers to create powerful software applications able to access third-party data, services, or functions.
When it comes to digital transformation, APIs have become remarkably valuable. This is because they allow companies to create complex and powerful applications with multiple functions quickly and with little effort. According to the “State of API Integration Report”, 83% of tech specialists surveyed consider API integration critical to their work.
5. How am I able to streamline my IT through Low Code?
An average traditional development process takes four to nine months, from prototyping to deployment. One of the main factors for delay in this type of development process is the lack of streamlined processes. With low code platforms, businesses can streamline existing processes without increasing cost or straining the development team. Thereby quickening the time to deliver and time to market. The ability to enable the immediate development and deployment of enterprise applications makes low-code platforms a great digital transformation tool.
Are You Ready To Reinvent Your Business?
Low-code development platforms arm IT with the ability to develop and deliver enterprise applications rapidly. Compared to traditional application development, low-code greatly minimizes hand-coding in multiple languages. It also maximizes code re-use, reduces risk, and eliminates the need to find elusive and costly full-stack developers.
The goal of reinventing is to better position yourself to meet your customer needs and ultimately increase ROI, and remain competitive. In a digital economy, ROI equals IT output, and the best way to improve IT output is to provide your current staff with better development tools. LANSA is the best tool you can possibly empower your IT with. It comes fully packed with features and solutions that’ll help you in achieving the five approaches discussed in this article.
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