Interconnected 
Ecosystem

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, digital systems are readily viewed as an integral part of business organisations. But as the pace of change accelerates and industries are increasingly disrupted by the entrance of new players and business models, enterprises must pick up the pace of their business transformation initiatives for growth.

Why interconnection matters

For a start, businesses must first evolve and replace inefficient and dated processes and methods with modern techniques and approaches that offer vastly superior results. Unsurprisingly, organisations that operate in an isolated and resource-limited environment typically find change much harder than those emplaced within interconnected environments.

Such an environment should ideally consist of a digital ecosystem which draws together a wealth of resources from disparate sources including partners, suppliers, and even customers. Being part of a cooperative network not only offers enhanced agility and flexibility, but the collaborative relationships established between the various parties can often serve as a catalyst for innovation.

Importantly, this collaboration can form the foundation by which enterprises can establish a digital ecosystem that melds the capabilities of a myriad of service providers and business partners. This digital melting pot serves to encourage new initiatives and draw in fresh capital, culminating in a virtuous feedback loop that bolsters morale and contributes to the bottom-line.

Of course, fluid communication and collaboration are only possible with the right interconnection in place. It also requires a paradigm shift where enterprises are willing to leverage APIs, services and cloud capabilities that are not directly within its direct control to move the organisation forward.

Benefits of the interconnected ecosystem

There are many benefits for businesses to establish an interconnection ecosystem, though the most enticing would probably be the enticement of a significantly faster speed to market. With the interconnectivity in place, enterprises can tap into various public cloud platforms and online services to substantially increase the velocity of deploying new capabilities.

With flexible and cost-effective software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualisation (NFV) capabilities, businesses can easily and rapidly scale their existing infrastructure and extend its reach to match changing user needs and line-of-business requirements.

And the establishment of the interconnection ecosystem doesn’t have to cost more. Instead of traditional MPLS connections, enterprises today can provision dedicated high-speed cross connects between ecosystem players for faster and more affordable network connectivity – and without the artificial bandwidth caps.

Finally, security is not something that needs to be sacrificed in an interconnection ecosystem. With communication pathways completely digital, security and compliance measures can be applied to data at rest or in transit for greater control and visibility than ever. As inefficient manual and non-digital processes are discarded, the result is a highly-secured fabric that offers both privacy and compliance.

Accelerating business transformation ahead

The move towards an interconnected ecosystem will only accelerate, as network operators respond by tweaking their offerings to meet the surge in connectivity requirements in recent years. They have released new capabilities and services to address evolving requirements and fill gaps in enterprise needs, such as the ability to interconnect between corporate locations, data centres, and the top public cloud platforms.

Within many enterprises, priorities are also shifting to transform internal systems and external communications with suppliers and partners into a digital supply chain. As businesses are equipped with access to real-time information and better insights within the organisation, the outcome is improved efficiency and better business decisions. Though IDC says just nine percent of companies have digitally transformed their supply chains, awareness is increasing.

Elsewhere, financial services providers seeking to tap into the digital payments market are also driving interconnection demand, as they seek to carve out a slice of the US$4.5 trillion that the market is projected to attain by 2023. The establishment of secure interconnections between financial organisations is expected to proliferate to all aspects of banking, driven by customer expectations for digital payments and seamless bank-to-bank transactions.

Are you part of the interconnected ecosystem yet?  

With greater agility, performance and security that digital businesses demand, the interconnected ecosystem lowers the barrier of entry to new market opportunities while simultaneously amplifying existing business capabilities for partners and customers alike. And the benefits will only multiply as the interconnected ecosystem is strengthened with the participating of more players, resulting in greater innovations and benefits for all.

Find out how you can leverage our interconnected ecosystem to support your business digital transformation at starhubinnovates.com.

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