Technology “is the enabler of virtually any strategy, whether by providing the big data analytics that reveal new ways to reach new customer groups, or the Internet of Things connections that enable a whole new profit center in after-sale support. Top leaders need to know what technologies can do and how to bend it to their strategic goals. Leaders cannot wait until technologies are fully baked to think about how they will work for – or against – them. And sometimes companies will need to disrupt their own business models before a rival or new competitor does it for them.”
This excerpt from a recent research paper published by the McKinsey Global Institute makes the point that new IT models require more explicit alignment to business strategies, and therefore, require a mature vertical industry go-to-market strategy that parallels IT innovation.
At EMC, we apply our IT infrastructure capabilities to create value for enterprises looking for targeted industry solutions. With increasing frequency, we balance our horizontal technology approach with carefully chosen vertical industry solution development.
Working closely with our largest customers, it’s clear that they expect more from their IT partners than just great IT infrastructure building blocks. Large enterprise IT organizations are transforming to drive business impact and results from faster, more flexible IT delivery tuned to the needs of their industry. And they need their infrastructure partners to play a key role in that transformation.
A few examples:
- In energy exploration, seismic interpretation models cannot take full advantage of Big Data without IT infrastructure partners providing the linkage to their unique application stack.
- In large financial services institutions or large pharmaceutical companies, security analytics cannot be applied as quickly to their multi-channel, highly complex information environments without their IT infrastructure partners forming the ecosystem of providers necessary to make it happen.
- Manufacturers cannot combine the benefits of virtualization and predictive analytics and long-established manufacturing processes without their IT partners showing them how.
- For telecommunications carriers, the move to the software-defined datacenter holds the promise of next-generation infrastructure. We can help the large network carriers around the world realize the vision of the new completely virtualized networked infrastructure model.
An industry solutions model requires an understanding of the ROI tied to the big industry IT transformation efforts of a customer. For the companies we serve, evolving their industry models with IT innovation isn’t measured only in hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost savings. It’s measured in the millions of dollars’ worth of growth opportunities.