DIGITAL STRATEGY
investment in its business intelligence to help customers navigate the sheer volume of solutions available and find tangible benefits for businesses looking for cloud-ready connectivity , offering a balance between CapEx and OpEx solutions , private and public networks .
Clayson has some sage words of advice for businesses eager to expand their digital transformation : “ You can potentially plan to do enormous programmes spanning multiple years aiming for a holy grail solution , but relationships with the partner and customer base can change , the market can diversify and so the business model might need to adapt ,” he warns . “ It ’ s a common problem across Telcos and big organisations to stumble with these kind of programmes , so it ’ s key to tackle change in bitesize amounts to get pieces of the larger puzzle completed before moving on to the next stage of development .”
Clayson also points out the unwanted outcome of this approach means you can end up just doing lots of small things thereby confusing your customer and partner base , so it ’ s important to communicate a sequence of changes to them and how they will need to plan . “ It ’ s a moving beast ,” he adds , noting that this is an area where TalkTalk itself has had to up its game . “ The days of having two to five-year development cycles with products evolving over time via market testing are gone ,” he reveals . “ So we ’ ve had to find ways to be more flexible . Equally you need to have your eye on a goal and know where you want to end up .”
It ’ s a sentiment echoed by TalkTalk Business COO Duncan Gooding , highlighting many paths that digital transformation can take while businesses push to drive growth in connectivity . “ For some , it could mean shifting key operations from old , on-premises solutions to flexible , cost-effective cloud computing platforms ,” he notes . “ For others , it may involve high-definition videoconferencing and fast file-sharing to support collaboration between employees situated around the country . Or perhaps augmented reality and robotics are top of your business agenda . There ’ s no one answer to digital transformation , but all routes are certain to consume more
10 January 2018