Digital transformation: Doing it right

If there’s one thing that is a constant today across businesses worldwide, it is that they are all changing rapidly. Digital transformation has become a popular phrase for corporations and public sector entities even as they seek to accelerate efficiencies by adopting the latest technologies.

A combination of technology advancements, evolving customer expectations, process enhancements and new business models are forcing companies to rethink their strategies, according to IDC.

Speaking at the Micro Focus Virtual Universe 2020 – which was held for an online global audience – the tech company’s CEO Stephen Murdoch explained that the key is to find the “balance of both running our business today and transforming it for what we believe it needs to be in the future”.

“The reality is we have to find and capture new sources of revenue, on top of our existing business infrastructure, business processes and our organisational structures. We need to evolve but we have to build on what we have. That’s about finding this balance of innovating at speed but doing so with a cost and a risk profile, that’s appropriate for the enterprise,” he said.

“Most of our customers live in a multi-generational, multi-process and development model environment. How do you innovate in the reality of that environment? How do you embrace new opportunities through the Internet of Things? How do you bring in new capabilities from emerging startup vendors and SaaS capabilities, and how do you do all of that with the correct balance of cost, risk and speed?”

Outlining the company’s strategy, Murdoch highlighted their four main pillars of digital transformation: Enterprise DevOps; hybrid IT management; security, risk and governance; and predictive analysis. These elements are all combined to offer clients a holistic and methodical approach.

“We operate across waterfall methodologies, agile, true to DevOps. And we do all of that within our own business. We have taken very significant cost improvements and we’ve done so well improving our risk posture,” he said.

Micro Focus, which has 4,800 engineering staff operating 24×7, scans 10 to 20 million code lines for security on a daily basis and manages around 6,000 patches annually.

It offers enterprise DevOps services to 20,000 customers globally, with 50 languages supported and over one million users in the community. The company also provides security, risk and governance services to 10 of the world’s largest banks, managing 450 million identities with 485 patents also secured.

“We have a holistic set of capabilities. We are very open and flexible in terms of how we embrace open source capabilities within our own solutions or in collaboration. We have an open partner proven ecosystem that allows you to be flexible in terms of which public cloud, which systems integration partner [you want to work with] and we work incredibly closely to be at the core of many of those offerings ourselves. We believe we have a flexible, capable and structured end to end offering to help you do business,” said Murdoch.

The company is also focusing heavily on analytics to differentiate its portfolio, using its Vertica platform. Current offerings include ArcSight Investigate, Operations Bridge, hybrid loud management, data centre automation, app defender, GDPR solutions with voltage and ZENworks, with other solutions planned for the future.

Using predictive analytics, Micro Focus backs 10 million digital ad auctions every second and powers 14 million Uber rides daily.
“Analytics is fundamental to everything that we do. How we develop our products is really core to what we do here at Micro Focus. We call it customer centric innovation,” said Murdoch.

Internally, the company is also making investments in its business and undergoing its own digital transformation following a fundamental review of operations. This is taking place within four areas:

1. Complete the core systems and operational simplification work
The objective is to create “agile, simplified systems and processes making it easier to do business.”

2. Transform its go-to-market organisation and approach
The objective is to improve how Micro Focus supports customers and meets their evolving needs.

3. Evolve the business model to establish stronger positions in growth areas
The objective is to make incremental investments in product research and development to deliver new capabilities faster.

4. Accelerate a targeted transition to subscription and SaaS
The objective is to provide more choice for how customers licence and use products.

“We may not always be the shiny, new solution or capability in the marketplace, but we have a bulletproof approach in terms of being able to deliver at scale. We are in business for 40 years, we’ll be in business for 40 more, and we’re fully committed to being a long-term investor success,” added Murdoch.