Establishing and running an innovative digital business is a journey. There is no finishing line.
It is a tough, iterative process, and this has to be something you embrace. Change is never complete because customer demands and technologies will always evolve.
The C-suite (and all teams, for that matter) needs to be more creative about their adoption of digital transformation because they know it will drive the future of their business.
For global companies that want to embrace creativity, it’s imperative that the underlying rules of innovation and ways to launch are understood and made as accessible and as easy to run with as possible.
1. Remove the blockers to innovation. That’s not to say you remove the governance, but you must enable people to create and adapt new strategies while knowing and respecting the rules.
You need innovation, but here’s the issue: There is a growing challenge for IT vs. other departments on technology ownership. Everyone wants to feel that they own innovation, but not everyone has the right or the knowledge to make technology decisions on behalf of the company.
One aspect of innovation is about improving life for customers and employees. Another is about how innovation is deployed and how the technology is used. These are not incompatible constructs, but the leadership of a digital business needs to create the vision and process for how this is achieved and sustained.
2. Become an active organization. Many companies already using cloud technologies are still very passive. The cloud is not a universal panacea. A common misstep is when companies just replicate the way they’ve always worked, but in the cloud. This leaves them unable to respond to market disruption because the operating model does not lend itself to an active, progressive enterprise.
An active organization helps teams to serve themselves to innovate so they can react, be active, and innovate for the future. Cloud technology can be a catalyst for part of this change, but a shift in culture and ways of working is essential to empower people to feel they are encouraged and expected to create.
Let’s assume your company is one that embraces new ways of working and teams want to help themselves to innovate. Most companies have this intention, but it’s managed badly so they go and build something in a silo—only to find they aren’t allowed to run it because it doesn’t work for the rest of the company, and they missed out on the full range of benefits that could have been achieved.
3. Deploy the right cloud service deployment platform. A service delivery platform ensures teams can create and release products in an environment already tuned to what will and won’t be accepted by the company. It shortcuts the “yes” or “no” so you can spin up products much faster and get answers on what’s OK vs. what’s not.
You don’t have to keep revisiting the same questions around how you balance agility with governance. Once it is set, it’s done. You can move on so both customers and regulators are happy. Legal, security, and regulation departments can sleep at night knowing nothing gets released without passing the test. Commercial teams can see fast progress.
By giving teams a platform to create their own products and services pre-loaded with the rules and boundaries for things like risk and legal, you fast-track decision-making and speed up launches without compromising quality.
It empowers companies to work within their own comfort zones of business agility vs risk.
It won’t let you build a low-security login just to create a fast release for a public, minimum viable product. It will make sure you don’t cut the wrong corners for immediate convenience, but you can still work at speed to get the right answer faster—all while ensuring you benefit from all the features your cloud platform offers.
At Cognizant, we think technology shouldn’t hold back innovation on your cloud transformation journey with Amazon Web Services (AWS). It should enable innovation for everyone, and there are now incredible ways to empower teams to innovate for themselves while they adhere to technology rules and best practices.
Let our people, IP, innovation, and partnership with AWS show you how to be more innovative and creative while reaping the maximum benefit from your digital transformation journey and beyond. We understand what represents short-term cloud transformation success while delivering long-term value.