User Manual

> White Paper | Best Practices in Digital Transformation
30
The Siemens Point of View
The research and analysis in the Paper raise some important and
complex issues raised by preparing an organisation for digitalisation.
With this in mind, DCD spoke with Urs Iten, Director of Global
Portfolio Management Data Centers at Siemens about some of
these issues.
DCD: How do you read the preparedness of the MTDC companies
you are in contact with for digital transformation? The view from
the companies we talked to was mixed - interest in the possibility of
better business performance through transformation but concern
about the sheer scope of the task - does this concur with what you
are finding?
Urs Iten, Global Portfolio Manager Data Centers: The data center
market still seems to be a relative conservative market. This results
ultimately from the major pressure to maintain uptime requirements
for such critical infrastructure. Many organizations are not yet fully
committed to changing things – there’s a sense of “if it ain’t broke,
don’t try to fix it”. Indeed, every change creates the potential for
additional risk, but it also can generate benefits. This applies also for
many situations in our life in general and means that appropriate risk
mitigation strategies need to be developed.
We have nowadays access to solutions and technologies through
which we can connect almost everything centrally via related
applications so we can monitor and control complete data
center facility infrastructures remotely, or even go further to
automate parts and processes remotely also. Nevertheless, many
organizations and their sta do prefer to run their sites in the
traditional way. This means that systems and components are not
connected to any supervisory tool.
One of the possible downsides of pursuing digital transformation
is definitely the requirement for cyber security. As more and
more devices are connected on an IP basis this represents
potential vulnerabilities. This is something that therefore needs
to be considered and managed through the process of digital
transformation too.
The principle here is that additional risks need to be accepted and
managed in order to reach and generate value-add.
DCD: What do you find are the biggest challenges to the companies
you deal with in terms of realizing digital transformation?
Urs Iten, Global Portfolio Manager Data Centers: Basically,
everything in life it needs a motivation to change or to unlock the
potential for going new and dierent ways. In the context of digital
transformation the added value that can be gained from a new
or adjusted business model is the fundamental motivation and
starting point. Digital transformation is not for free and it requires
investment to prepare the digital platform for example. Beside the
platform, the transformation of the organization itself is a key part
of the digital transformation of business. Inevitably, people are
changing slower than are machines.
In many cases, companies are not yet prepared to consider processes
from an end-to-end perspective. Distributed responsibilities across
the organisation make it even more challenging.
I’d conclude that the business case together with associated added
value is the key element, as well as the transformation of the
organization itself and its culture. Decisions therefore have to taken
by management from the top down.
The whole process needs to be consider holistically in order to
direct specific implement strategies and a step by step approach!
DCD: Just as transformation will change the MTDC data center so
it will change also the relationship with the companies that 'supply'
into that provider. How do you observe this impacting Siemens?
How will this change the way you yourselves do business?
Urs Iten, Global Portfolio Manager Data Centers: Digital
transformation also implies that all business partners need to be
considered and included into the big picture of the analysis. It also
needs to be integrated in terms of the specific implementation of
digital business models, with all the associated collaboration that is
required.
We are already seeing ourselves as part of such collaboration
models, especially in the context of our wide range of service
oerings across the life cycle for data centers in many areas of
operation such as energy services and in many regions.
DCD: Is best practice possible with digital transformation? Or is the
process too new and uncharted?
Urs Iten, Global Portfolio Manager Data Centers: Best practice is
possible in our point of view, but with limitations. Best practices
can be used in the context of general principles and approaches.
The details are likely to be dierent between dierent business and
use cases. Best practices can also be used to shape the process of
organizational transformation, in terms of principles, behaviors and
cultures that need be changed. The exact methods of achieving this
remain mostly unique to each case, especially in an organization
which operates across borders which means it includes dierent
cultures within its domain. u