Stephen Ludlow at OpenText recaps the intersecting themes and key takeaways at Enterprise World on what is paramount to unlock the new information advantage.
Today’s enterprises collect a massive amount of information, and storing, managing and securing that information are huge challenges. Even more difficult is analyzing information to gain insights and improve business processes.
Organizations that leverage their information assets to their full potential will gain a competitive advantage. This is what we call “the information advantage†to drive productivity, growth, and lasting competitive differentiation. OpenText is the global leader in Enterprise Information Management (EIM) – the practice of capturing, governing, exchanging, and using information to its full potential while keeping it secure.
A New Enterprise Landscape
At our annual conference, Enterprise World, CEO & CTO, Mark J Barrenechea highlighted the increasing importance of how we collect, analyze and use information. The conference offered compelling insights, use-cases and presentations on how the post-digital era has created a new enterprise landscape with momentum highlighted across sectors. Throughout the four days, this year’s Enterprise World helped prepare and guide business leaders through the technologies and strategies paramount in unlocking this information advantage.
Here are a few key takeaways from the event.
1. In the post-digital world, every company is an information company. The winners will be those that move to embrace that new reality.
In the opening keynote, Mark mapped out a future in which businesses are able to use information for good, through ethical supply chains, secure smart cities that preserve privacy, gene editing and bio-medicine, digital agriculture, robotics, AI and the IoT. But to achieve this future, it’s important to get creative by re-imagining business and preparing for an unprecedented planetary scale of technology in the near future.
As Mark put it, “Today’s business environment requires companies to leverage the Information Advantage that comes with EIM. This moves beyond the ‘process advantage’ that ERP brought to the organization. It’s about unlocking that insight to build a smarter, better business.â€
With newer technological advancements in automation, robotics and IoT, the way we work will also shift and new roles will form. Information management will help companies embrace a new way to work and succeed in a post-digital world.
2. The future is cloud, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud.
Each enterprise’s journey to the cloud will differ, which is why it is important to offer a variety of cloud strategies delivering solutions that include a “run anywhere†approach. To emphasize our continued commitment to this method, a few key updates and exciting partnerships were announced.
First, Mark announced a new expanded partnership with Google Cloud during his opening keynote. Google Cloud has selected OpenText as its preferred partner for Enterprise Information Management Services, while OpenText has named Google Cloud its preferred partner for enterprise cloud.
Through the partnership, OpenText will deliver the next generation of cloud-based content services supporting the Google Cloud Platform and will be able to leverage leading Google services, such as translation services and AI/ML.
The partnership is set to help the world’s largest enterprises and organizations securely manage their most valuable asset, information. It is also reflective of a wider trend in extending solutions on popular hyper-scale cloud infrastructures and making sure to provide flexibility in cloud offerings.
Mark also made it clear that cloud is a strategic imperative and in order to stay competitive as a software business, it’s crucial to support customers at every stage of their cloud journey. In addition to the Google announcement, all OpenText offerings going forward will be cloud-first as of April 2020.
Major technology updates to their Business Network Cloud was also announced, helping ensure that digital transformation initiatives fuel a highly connected, collaborative enterprise. The latest Business Network Cloud release put a key focus on data integration and management, ensuring that data is better managed, integrated and secured across complex business ecosystems.
“Reimagining innovation for OpenText, and for our R&D and product management teams, means giving our customers a choice,†said Muhi. “Our focus on EIM means commitment to every one of our customers that we will give you the choice in how you leverage our technology.â€
3. Technology, and EIM, can be a force for good.
On Day two, Kamal Pillay, Chief Information and Technology Officer for South African National Parks (SANParks), took the stage to showcase how his organization is leveraging technology to support their conservation and preservation efforts.
The 19 national parks across South Africa are very remote. Connectivity for many is only available by satellite, but Pillay’s team is working on building out a network to improve service. He emphasized how EIM technology is core to running the parks, covering supply chain, facilities management and organizational process management, to name a few applications.
“Technology is fundamental to our operations,†said Pillay. “And OpenText touches the lives of every employee in SANParks. From HR processes to supply chain, OpenText plays a role.â€
4. Disruption is everywhere as we embark in a post digital world.
To launch Enterprise World, Barrenechea was joined by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web, to discuss how the internet came to be, how disruption is now everywhere, and how information is enabling and shifting the way we work, live and understand the world around us.
Technology holds tremendous power to change our world for the better, or worse. As we enter into a post-digital world, OpenText plans to help organizations harness information for the betterment of their businesses.