Whose transformation is it anyway?

Digital transformation is top of the agenda for many customer organisations now. But according to a specially-commissioned IDC report for Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and VMware, IDC (Digital Transformation Through Platform Integration, October 2016), few are ready to make the journey successfully and 50 per cent of projects don't attain their goals

Transformation reaches far and wide into organisations. Indeed, IDC notes that 72 per cent of initiatives are driven by the business rather than IT. Digital transformation requires organisations to automate more of their processes and abandon the siloed approach that they have taken in the past. That might sound simple enough. But doing that is evidently not straight-forward. End-user organisations are already dependent on their IT systems, so transformation will be disruptive. There will be some resistance to change.

This is also true of resellers. In the past, most VARs have been used to responding to ITTs that are prescriptive and precise in terms of what needs to be achieved. Digital transformation projects tend to go much further in terms of their goals and ambitions, setting employees free from the limitations of processes that are largely manual and people-dependent, and giving them much more flexibility and freedom.

As Jean-Philippe Barleaza, EMEA vice president channel, alliances and general business at VMware, stated in the CRN Special Report on the IDC report, infrastructure needs to be modernised for faster deployment, adaptation and scaling. "It means bringing together all the benefits of server and storage virtualisation across the network and making it much easier to set-up and manage applications and services."

Resellers then, must propose and be prepared to provide a much more far-reaching and transformational set of solutions and services. As HPE and VMware have noted, this is a challenge for partners. "In implementing these digital transformations, customer organisations are looking to drive radical and disruptive change for their organisations", said Barleaza. "That is going to have a profound impact on them and it is pretty much uncharted territory for many of our partners as well."

To address this challenge, the two companies have joined forces to create a set of foundation platforms for digital transformation. These offerings combine all the essential components - server, storage, virtualisation, networking, management, within integrated and optimised platforms. They offer on-premises and software-defined options, and thus provide a complete platform for streamlined provisioning, deployment and management.

In doing so, HPE and VMware are addressing the fundamental issues that cause problems for transformation projects further down the line, when infrastructure is unable to adapt, scale and integrate. They are providing the stable backbone that will give transformation projects a much greater chance of meeting their initial goals and in doing so, helping their partners as well as end-user customers to make digital transformation work.

Resellers interested in finding out more about the HPE and VMware solutions and approach to digital transformation can find out more and register to receive further information at www.hpeandvmware.com/crn

A free copy of the IDC report, Digital Transformation Through Platform Integration, October 2016, is available for download here