By Boomi
The key theme of Forrester’s marquee conference, Digital Transformation and Innovation 2019, was how innovation is a critical enabler for advancing digital transformation. The event, which was held May 14-15 in Chicago, attracted a large number of C-level business leaders and decision-makers from multiple industries.
The experts at the event broadly acknowledged the difficulties that underpin successful digital transformation, offering suggestions and ideas for businesses to strategize, plan and execute on their transformation initiatives. They were all in agreement that mastering technology-driven innovation plays a crucial role for any company’s transformation journey.
And although we refer to a “journey,” digital transformation is not a destination. You don’t transform your business and say, “I am done.” The markets will continue to change. The technology landscape will continue to change. So, your business needs to continuously adapt.
Technology Drives Innovation
We are seeing too much “digital sameness” these days. Apps, web pages, user experiences offered by key players across the industry are similar. So how do companies differentiate and grow? Disruptive innovation is the answer. Technology-driven innovation involves rapid technology experimentation for the purpose of unleashing disruptive change.
This rapid experimentation provides insights that help businesses make informed decisions on which technologies and innovation to embrace and which to ignore, understand which platforms and products hold promise, and determine where to place bets. It also helps inspire an “art of the possible” mindset — where and how can digital benefit the business in practical ways — reimagining customers, and proactive planning.
The challenge is not that technology is changing rapidly. It’s that businesses need to understand technology better and more quickly in order to adopt it fast enough to keep pace.
Three of the conference tracks focused on technology-driven innovation: Core Transformational Technologies, Emerging Technology, and The Future of Work. Each track was hosted by a few different Forrester analysts and consisted of sessions designed to help educate and inspire business leaders on these foundational topics.
Core transformational technologies. Embracing core technologies driven by cloud, microservices, low-code, APIs and intelligence is critical to keep up with rapidly shifting business models. It’s also important for businesses to tell a story about why investment in new technology is critical. While that story should include best practices and lessons learned, it’s important to also share ways to apply success in cloud platform adoption to modernizing applications. This shows the need to invest in core technology as a business asset, not a cost center.
Emerging technology isn’t about all the new buzz words — it’s about business plans thoughtfully crafted and structured for execution. Through the right structured emerging technology experimentation and adoption plans, businesses understand how to leverage new technologies to create a path to differentiation, disruption and growth. It was great to see Boomi get a shout-out in the AI and IoT session for powering Briggo, the first automated robotic coffeehouse.
The future of work is changing. Adaptive enterprises know how to respond to rapidly changing customer, technology and competitive trends. An adaptive workforce may involve humans, bots and robots. These technologies are creating jobs gains, job losses and job transformations. To plan for the workforce of the future, businesses need to understand where they need to invest for automation. In this new workforce, robotics quotient (RQ) — scoring a company or individual’s ability to work effectively with robots — drives thinking about automation and AI becomes critical.
Accelerating Innovation Through Experimentation
The messages around technology-driven innovation shared at the conference go hand-in-hand with Boomi’s strategy. The Boomi unified platform helps create the foundation for technology-driven innovation. With the ability to connect anything, engage everywhere and run anywhere, Boomi offers core transformative technology that helps businesses create better, more engaging experiences.
Boomi enables “art of the possible” thinking by experimenting with end-to-end prototypes that connect people, robots, apps, data, devices and endpoints leveraging the “wisdom of the
crowd.”
In our conference session, “Accelerating Innovation Through Experimentation,” we shared how a Boomi customer, Jack in the Box, is using the Boomi Platform to not only create engaging customer experiences and address its modernization challenges but also to experiment and try out new ideas through rapid prototyping.
Technology is a must for digital transformation. Innovative firms execute differently in every aspect of their business with the help of technology to advance their portfolio of digital programs. With Boomi as your foundational technology, you can reimagine your business to accelerate the outcomes you desire. Get our Guide to Modern ERP Integration to learn how your organization can help you integrate and accelerate your operations.