As I read through the lesson 04 material, one particular term piqued my interest: value proposition. Investopedia defines value proposition as a concise statement of the benefits a company delivers to customers who buy its products or services. According to Gartner, there are three design patterns for value propositions: change the value proposition, expand the value proposition, and improve the value proposition.

In the same article, Gartner provided examples of Porsche and VW, which embarked on expanding and changing their value propositions, respectively. Porsche started a subscription service, a unique idea for a car manufacturer and probably never tried before, and VW started its digital logistics platform called RIO. I can only imagine the technology architecture changes required to address such a change in value proposition.

Similarly to the two companies noted in the Gartner article, I recalled two more prominent examples of such value proposition changes: Amazon and Netflix. Amazon realized that its logistic partners could not match the demands of its customers and moved to establish a logistics department quickly. And Netflix, which mailed its last DVD just a few days ago, went from shipping physical media to one of the largest streaming platforms in a few years.

All these changes and expansions in the value proposition force rapid changes in enterprises’ technical architecture and digital transformation calculus. I find the switch in value proposition extremely interesting. Let me know your thoughts. Has your company experienced such a change in the value proposition, and how did it address those changes?

 

Cloud computing is not a new concept anymore. Two of the biggest cloud providers, AWS and Azure, have been around for 17 and 13 years, respectively. Cloud computing is ever so ubiquitous, and according to a survey by RightScale, cloud adoption was 91% in 2019. The cloud can be considered one of our times’ most fundamental disrupting technologies. What I find interesting is that, unlike most other technologies, the cloud has not faced the same headwinds as other disrupting technologies. As noted in this WSJ article, adopting new technology is sometimes painstakingly slow for many domains.

My own company found that to be competitive in defense contracting, it had to realign its technology infrastructure architecture. And without being in the decision-making circle, I can safely guess that the pandemic played a substantial part in moving the executive leadership in that direction. This seemingly was the case for most organizations, as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted the fast pace of digital transformation at the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

The move towards a quick digital transformation brings its own set of challenges. My organization started its digital transformation in late 2020 to become future-fit. It has gone through growing pains, specifically with rearchitecting the network to manage capacity and cost. Companies must invest in team skill-building and team member rotation opportunities with ever-complex technology infrastructure architecture methodologies such as multi-cloud hybrid architecture. Let me know your thoughts. Has your enterprise started its digital transformation journey, and how is it facing the evolving challenges?