Techaisle Blog

“IT and cloud orchestration” reflects the reality of a multi-platform world in the era of digital transformation. Techaisle research shows that within the SMB & midmarket segment, orchestrated connected cloud and technology will be the focus of substantial new investment over the next few years. Connected cloud itself forms the basis for an Interwork platform for successful digital transformation and is crucial for competitiveness and growth.

• Upper midmarket firms use an average of 2.5 of the four leading public cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft, Google, IBM) – a true multi-cloud environment
• For 25% of small businesses and 51% of midmarket firms, workloads and data migrate across cloud and/or on-premise platforms
• 89% of midmarket firms state that orchestration tools are critical to their ability to deploy workloads on hybrid platforms
• 46% of SMBs do not know which cloud services to use and in what order
• 47% of SMB/midmarket-focused channel partners are offering orchestration but only 24% are delivering, but 55% are expecting substantial revenue increases in the next 1 year
• Use of orchestration is poised for growth as 40% of midmarket firms and 15% of small businesses are implementing cloud connectivity

Using a large number of on-premise technology as well as cloud platforms is escalating complexity beyond reasonable manual management limits. In response to this conundrum, many SMBs & midmarket firms are turning to orchestration as a strategy for optimizing use of multiple platforms and multiple technologies (topic of another blog another time). But help and guidance are missing. Even Techaisle’s latest channel partner study shows that although 47% offer orchestration but only 24% are delivering, and that also partially. Their vendor partners are not helping because of intense focus on enterprise segment.

In the quest for digitalization and digital transformation there has been ad hoc adoption of technology – both cloud & on-premise - as responses to paint points within SMBs.

Techaisle survey shows:

• 73% of US SMBs are using at least one SaaS application, up from 27% in 2011
• 51% of global SMBs begin their cloud journey with SaaS
• Global SMB spend on SaaS in 2018 will be US$40 billion
• Cloud is the agility platform & SaaS is a zero-friction option for automating business processes
• 74% of SMBs achieved increased business agility with connected business processes

Techaisle forecasts worldwide SMB (1-999 employee segment) IT spend will reach US$735 billion in 2021 and cross US$1 trillion in 2028, growing at 2X the global GDP rate and 3X the enterprise segment. With slightly over 72 million SMBs (excluding home-based businesses), the market segment presents itself as lucrative and yet incredibly difficult to penetrate. Within each employee-size category there exists segments by IT sophistication, cloud maturity, digital transformation strategy, SaaS adoption, cloud first to cloud selective segments. As per Techaisle survey digital transformation is on the minds of most SMBs who are expected to spend US$275 billion on DX in 2018. And 42% of SMBs have become more dependent on technology over the last 12 months for better business outcomes.

Internet and the web are the navigation routes that we have been developing since the 1970s; the always-on, everywhere-connected Interwork platform is the destination that we will be creating in 2018 and for years to come.

As we enter 2018, it seems that online capabilities and activities are entering a new era. There are still advances to be made in the ‘net’ realm: there is constant pressure to expand the speed of the Internet, enabling it to handle the voracious demands of unstructured content like video, and the rise of IoT portends a coming tsunami of data from billions of connected devices. However, the key focus of web-based business investment is now less about the ‘net’ and more about the ‘work’: the ways that an increasingly-connected world supports pursuit of previously-unattainable objectives. The most important IT-related development in 2018 will be this focus on connectedness – connected cloud, connected edge, connected applications, connected security, conected collaboration, connected workspaces and connected insights. (Download your free white paper here)

Techaisle calls it the “Interwork platform” (as described in Techaisle's latest white paper). This refers to Techaisle’s belief that 2018 will mark a transition point at which corporate focus on developing and deploying systems that offer the capacity to connect diverse resources (the Internet platform) will be surpassed by a focus on capitalizing on the benefits of connected information, assets and users and teams – the ‘Interwork platform’ - to deliver on the four pillars of digital transformation: operational efficiency, customer intimacy, employee empowerment and innovation.

In the early 1970s, computer science pioneers Vint Cerf and Robert E. Kahn developed the networking protocol TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol – which enabled interconnections between networks to form a ‘network of networks’. Fifteen years later, in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web, allowing browsers to follow hypertext links to far-flung resources. The Web was released to the general public in August 1991 – and businesses and individuals around the world have spent more than 25 years developing a vast array of content, process and interactive capabilities that are set within and rely on the network of networks.

Techaisle’s position is that from the perspective of the technology world, 2018 – and quite possibly, several years following 2018 – will be defined by the benefits arising from the interconnection of all types of resources: platforms/environments, information, devices and applications. With the connective fabric now (or rapidly becoming) ubiquitous, businesses of all types and sizes will move beyond a focus on network access, and concentrate instead on using Interwork technologies to drive progress across the four pillars of digital transformation: operational efficiency, customer intimacy, employee empowerment and product innovation.

Techaisle’s recent point-of-view on the Interwork platform highlights seven key areas and trends playing out across seven key technology areas:

1. Connected cloud, which provides the foundation for Interwork, the bedrock on which Interwork platforms are built
2. Connected edge, which completes that foundation and will work with connected cloud to deliver the ‘yin and yang’ of the Interwork platform’s infrastructure
3. Connected applications, that represent the best path forward for corporate workloads and processes – and represent a critical component of the Interwork platform
4. Connected security, is an essential property of the Interwork platform as security strategies no longer resemble a ‘wrapper’ around assets
5. Connected collaboration, as it becomes part of the fabric of business activity, rather than as a means of enabling connections between discrete tasks
6. Connected workspaces, which draw together assets and users, delivering increased benefit within each category while simultaneously extending and strengthening the core of the Interwork platform; and
7. Connected insights, the information gained/accessed through the platform, which enables businesses to address constantly-advancing expectations for speed (of operational decisions) and completeness (of strategic decisions).

Business and IT executives who are able to grasp the benefits associated with these seven key areas – and who are able to profit from the points at which multiple connected business resources combine to build the broader Interwork platforms – will emerge as leaders in and beyond 2018. Their organizations will participate in shaping rapidly-evolving business and consumer expectations for responsiveness and agility. Businesses that capitalize on Interwork capabilities will capture preferred positions within their markets, and within the millennial labor pool that defines a key area of near-term competition.

There are many powerful rationales for investing in each of the seven components of an Interwork platform, and as Techaisle's white paper demonstrates, each component in turn delivers greater value when it is connected with the other links in the Interwork chain.

Download your free white paper here