02/02/2024
The Digital Core and Why It Is Important?
Most modern business will have a Digital Core even if it is not described as such. The Digital Core is the ecosystem of people, processes, technology, and data that enable the business to operate in a connected, digital world. This digital ecosystem must seamlessly and securely collaborate, respond to change and be continually adaptive. The Digital Core would typically have to address three primary dimensions of technology, data and cyber including all the human aspects around these disciplines. The explosion of (generative) AI has forced a fourth pillar into the mix. AI cannot be ignored. The hype phase will fall away and what will be left is significant opportunity and risk that will need to be at least assessed, solutions piloted and either implemented or dismissed but to not deeply consider the implications of AI will be a potentially fatal mistake.
Some of the major influences around the Digital Core that require proper consideration are shown in Figure 1 and outlined in the rest of this blogpost.
The recent overt and rapid (almost forced) introduction of AI into the Digital Core for businesses will create a significant suite of challenges across every business to understand, interpret and incorporate or mitigate it within its operations, products and policies.
The addition of AI at the centre of the Digital Core is the rapidly changing an increasingly complex interplay between technology (the trends to Cloud, SaaS, App, API ecosystems etc) data (and analytics), cyber (security) and artificial intelligence (AI). 2023 marked the next technological transition, when it will be necessary to understand these four core elements of digital business, their interplay with each other and the opportunities and risks they now collectively represent. 2024 therefore, will be an important year for leaders and organisations alike, to understand, learn and potentially reconfigure technically to develop and support them and strategically evolve to lead the deployment and evolution of them. Leaders who are not spending time to get appropriately close to these four pillars will miss opportunities and potentially miss or underplay risks that threaten to undermine stability and growth. We’ll discuss the key influences, risks, and opportunities around the changing Digital Core over a series of future blog posts. Connect and follow the posts to make sure you don’t miss an update.
If you would like to discuss more about the content of this blog and the issues being introduced, how to become hyperagile, or how to evolve a Digital Core an its implications for your executive team and business please do get in in touch. If. you simply want to contribute your thoughts and experiences to a wider piece of strategic transformational research and development, please get in touch here……