Key Questions to Ask When Buying Digital Transformation Technology

Summary

Manufacturing organizations are constantly facing workflow disruptions, whether from supply chain constraints, inhibited workforce productivity, cybersecurity events or other market forces. Given these ongoing circumstances, business resilience is critical, underscoring the need for IT infrastructure modernization.

However, the rush to digitally transform infrastructures and accelerate the adoption of cloud-based technologies may end up costing organizations more than they bargained for unless the appropriate guardrails are in place.

In the last few years, manufacturing organizations have amped-up digital transformation efforts, but success has been variable. To optimize budgets and drive long-term business success, leaders must ensure their technology purchasing decisions incorporate solutions that address vital security, agility, productivity, and collaboration requirements.

Let’s take a closer look at the key questions business leaders should ask themselves when integrating new technologies and dive into some of the cloud computing solutions, such as Cloud PCs, capable of mitigating companies’ most pressing challenges.

Is this solution reliable?

How good is a “great deal” on a new car if it keeps mysteriously breaking down? When time-to-market is everything, you can’t allow technology to be an inhibitor; it must be an enabler that drives your competitive advantage. As an example, end-user computing (EUC) solutions must be “always available” and to achieve this, the ability to continuously observe EUC technology behavior is foundational. Even with the most modern cloud solutions, it is inevitable that connectivity and performance problems will occur, potentially impacting productivity for hundreds or thousands of users.

In a world where virtual desktops and applications must span multiple clouds and on-premises data centers to meet demanding enterprise requirements, the ability to quickly identify, measure and resolve these problems is imperative to maintaining workflow efficiency. Solutions, such as Cloud PCs, can feature real-time, comprehensive visibility for all users globally—across cloud regions, multiple clouds, and private data centers—enabling IT teams to quickly perform root cause analysis and then mitigate disruptions and potential cost overruns.
 

Does this technology enable greater collaboration?

In the manufacturing industry, better communication and efficient collaboration across project teams, no matter where they are located geographically, can yield significant results. Fewer errors and less rework contribute to product quality, lower manufacturing costs, and reduced time-to-market, all essential factors for a competitive advantage. Especially with decentralized work environments here to stay, the importance of selecting technologies that support fast, global collaboration across multiple public clouds should not be underestimated.

Cloud PCs are one example of a cloud-native solution that, in modernizing end-user computing, takes performance, productivity and collaboration to new levels that can be transformational for manufacturing firms and generate a very attractive return on investment.
 

What are the cybersecurity implications of the solution?

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), ransomware groups successfully breached at least 860 critical infrastructure groups in 2022. Despite companies' concerted efforts to prevent attacks, the reality is that they are inevitable. The question then becomes one of resilience; can your organization recover business operations quickly regardless of the scope of the attack?

While cyber insurance is certainly helpful for recovery, it can’t shield organizations from millions of dollars in productivity losses and brand damage as work grinds to a halt for weeks.

When a ransomware attack occurs, minutes, hours, and days are dollars. The viability of EUC solutions plays a critical role since they are on the front lines of customer care. Protecting data from compromise is central, but if people cannot access that data, productivity comes to a screeching halt. When physical PCs are infected, they cannot be used for access. Instead, modern cloud PC solutions can save the day. 

In some cases, within an hour of an attack, an isolated, secure cloud PC environment can be activated so people can get back to work while the lengthy process of unraveling the damage done by the attack proceeds. In concert with backup and file management solutions, cloud PCs are a powerful offensive strategy that complements your ransomware defense by keeping the business alive and minimizing financial and reputational loss when an inevitable attack occurs.

For IT, the Cloud PC offense is easy to run; after all, simplicity is everything at a time when their attention must be focused on resolving the disruption. End users can carry on in their familiar desktop environment–no training necessary.

As manufacturing leaders accelerate the integration of cloud solutions to modernize their infrastructure, they must ensure they adopt technologies capable of improving productivity and collaboration, strengthening security and helping control costs, taking the organization to new levels of efficiency, and agility that drive business growth, even in the face of challenging market forces.