What is a Digital

Business Platform?
10 Important Questions About How Digital Business Platforms
Can Accelerate Digital Transformation
ANSWERS TO 10 IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
ABOUT DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

1 WHY DOES MY ORGANIZATION NEED TO BECOME A DIGITAL BUSINESS?

2 WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME A DIGITAL BUSINESS?

3 WHAT TECHNOLOGY DO I NEED TO DIGITALLY TRANSFORM?

4 WHERE EXACTLY DOES A DIGITAL BUSINESS PLATFORM FIT IN?

5 WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL CAPABILITIES OF A DIGITAL BUSINESS PLATFORM?

6 HOW CAN A DIGITAL BUSINESS PLATFORM ENABLE COLLABORATION?

7 HOW DOES A DIGITAL BUSINESS PLATFORM ENABLE CONNECTIVITY?

8 HOW CAN A DIGITAL BUSINESS PLATFORM IMPROVE EXPERIENCES?

9 HOW CAN A DIGITAL BUSINESS PLATFORM INCREASE INTELLIGENCE?

10 HOW DOES A DIGITAL BUSINESS PLATFORM SUPPORT SCALABILITY?

 What is a digital business platform

Question 1

WHY DOES MY ORGANIZATION

NEED TO BECOME A DIGITAL
BUSINESS?

A
re you trying to become more digitally innovative. This significant threat has put
driven to improve your customers the buzz words of the decade Digital
experience and create competitive Transformation firmly on the agenda of
advantage? Then youre trying to become every C-suite executive and technology
a digital business, and youre in the right leader.
place. This in-depth guide to Digital Business
Platforms will define for you the kind of But most businesses struggle to execute this
technology that you may need to introduce in transformation successfully. In fact, as many
order to accelerate your journey to becoming as 70% of digital transformation projects
a digital business. are expected to fail.ii No-one would argue
that technology gaps are the only causes of
The reality is abundantly clear: leading such failures, but in the pages that follow
organizations in every industry face the youll see how putting the right technology
increasing threat of digital disruption, from in place will help you to exhibit the essential
brand new digital businesses and from characteristics of a digital business.
Digital business is the creation of existing competitors that are simply more
new business designs by blurring
the boundaries between
the digital and physical
worlds due to the convergence
of people, business and things
GARTNER i

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 What is a digital business platform

So for any organization to survive and thrive in todays

digital economy, it is essential that they are:

Question 2

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME

A DIGITAL BUSINESS? Agile
Possess the flexibility to develop
and adapt new operating models
Both industry analysts and leading exponents of digital transformation unanimously agree to create competitive advantage
that real digital transformation cannot be achieved inside the silos that businesses create
and operate within. Real digital transformation must be enterprise-wide.

People
Connected
Have the power to seamlessly
orchestrate people, processes,
applications and things

Digital
Business
Engaging
Devices Information Can use data, content and
context intelligently across
the moments that define the
customer experience

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 What is a digital business platform

Question 3

WHAT TECHNOLOGY DO
I NEED TO DIGITALLY
TRANSFORM?

D
igital transformation is not just a A digital business needs to rapidly provide Can ERPs and CRMs scale to this? Not
technology problem. It is a business new services and experiences that create quite, these systems have their place in
problem, where the challenge is to differentiation in the marketplace all to the organization and many administrative
reinvent the operations and services of a support customer acquisition and retention processes are currently based on them, but
traditional business for the digital age. Since in order to drive business growth. To reach these systems are known for their rigidity
significant technology investments already this arduous goal, organizations require a and singular focus.
sit at the core of even the most traditional technology infrastructure that allows for the
businesses, amplifying the power of that rapid co-creation, and innovation of business A digital business needs a more agile way to
existing technology is the most important processes and the surfacing of valuable connect its people, applications, information
enabler of change. information in the moments that matter. and devices a Digital Business Platform.

Digital transformation cannot

happen without astute digital
investments - the 'what' of digital
LEADING DIGITALiii

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 What is a digital business platform

Question 4

WHERE EXACTLY DOES A DIGITAL

BUSINESS PLATFORM FIT IN?

A
Digital Business Platform is a
transformational addition to your IT
infrastructure, one that connects rigid
but reliable legacy systems to the modern
digital services that youre able to create
using the platform.

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 What is a digital business platform

Question 5

WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL

CAPABILITIES OF A DIGITAL
BUSINESS PLATFORM?

B
y now youll hopefully be starting to Five Essential Capabilities of
imagine the crucial role that a platform
could play in helping you to become a Digital Business Platform
digitally driven.

So when looking at platforms, what do you Supporting rapid adoption of

need that technology to be able to do? technology across global business
and the ability to scale up or down
infinitely according to demand

Providing insights that inspire

innovation in operating models
for competitive advantage

Making data available to the right

person at the right time to improve
the customer experience

Integrating rigid systems and

organizational silos to make the
business more agile and efficient

Creating a space and a common

language for business and IT to work
together towards digital innovation

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 What is a digital business platform

Question 6

HOW CAN A DIGITAL BUSINESS

PLATFORM ENABLE COLLABORATION?
'Fixing the IT-business relationship can take time, as people learn how to trust
each other and redefine the way they work together. As with any struggling
relationship, the best starting point is to fix the way you communicate.
LEADING DIGITALiv

W
hile business and IT both exist to deliver A digital business platform addresses this by providing:
the same goal, they have always spoken
two different languages. This has often A common language to allow business and IT to
frustrated business leaders in passing requirements collaborate and build solutions together
over the fence to IT, and frustrated IT in getting
clear and timely information from business allowing An explicit focus on business processes as they are
them to deliver to the satisfaction of business. the core of every business model
Historically, attempts to bridge this gap havent
been very successful. However, this can no longer A way to remove the complexity of coding and replace
be allowed to continue. An effective collaborative it with visual and intuitive tools
effort between these teams is critical in driving
digital transformation and building a culture of Superior speed of delivery allowing for agile
co-creation and continuous innovation. experimentation and innovation

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 What is a digital business platform

Question 7

HOW DOES A DIGITAL BUSINESS

PLATFORM ENABLE CONNECTIVITY?
'Building a wide variety of incompatible processes and systems may seem like progress,
but it limits bigger opportunities. This incompatibility impedes a coordinated
approach to customer engagement and a unified view of operations.
LEADING DIGITALv

P
rocesses and applications dont exist in silos and A digital business platform addresses this by providing:
they need to interface and interact with a variety
of actors, systems and devices within and outside An architecture based on services, with a rich set
of the organization. To understand the complexity, lets of integration capabilities out-of-the-box allowing
take stock of the technology ecosystem surrounding connectivity with the multitude of systems that exist
most businesses: within and outside of the organizations ecosystem

Existing rigid, bespoke and legacy systems containing Weaving a thread between the various siloed systems
valuable information which cant just be ripped and to leverage data and insights to build a coherent view
replaced of the customer and the business

Partner and supplier systems that hold information to Easy to embed and co-exist with current and future
complete your operation end-to-end technologies

Third party services and systems Support for event-based processing based on triggers
from Internet of Things
New applications and technologies that bring exciting
opportunities to innovate and work more effectively

Devices interacting with systems from all angles

(Internet of Things)

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 What is a digital business platform

Question 8

HOW CAN A DIGITAL BUSINESS

PLATFORM IMPROVE EXPERIENCES?
'Customers are in control of their interactions with businesses in
the digital age. Attracting, winning, and retaining customers
requires a concerted effort across the entire organization.
ACCENTUREvi

L
ets draw an important distinction here between A digital business platform addresses this by
user interfaces, and user experiences. Many providing the ability to:
businesses take a top down approach to
improving the customer experience, starting with the Create a unified view of your data, by integrating
front end interface. This makes sense, but not if the the different input channels and systems or record of
transformation stops there. The application or web your organization
interface is only one touch point that a customer may
have with your business. Serve the relevant content to the right user at the
right time depending based on context, to ensure the
Improving experiences demands an overhaul of next best action is proposed
services across the customer journey, however they
choose to interact with your business, online, in Empower not only the customers but also the
person, or over the phone. This cant be achieved employees with intelligent, personalized and
unless you can provide intelligent, personalized, contextualized experiences
contextualized experiences to all your employees,
empowering them to better serve customers. Offer consistent experience across all devices

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 What is a digital business platform

Question 9

HOW CAN A DIGITAL BUSINESS

PLATFORM INCREASE INTELLIGENCE?
'The democratization of data is well underway. The data and analytics platform
must include self-service for increasingly wider constituencies in your organization.
GARTNERvii

D
ata-driven decision making is crucial A digital business platform addresses this by
for a digital business. To assess the providing the ability to:
success of an initiative, its imperative
that the business outcomes can be easily Perform business and operational analytics
measured and mapped against the goals with reports and dashboards against
of the organization. This use of data- established KPIs and SLAs
driven insights and intelligence also allow
organizations to make smarter decisions Identify operational bottlenecks to allow for
not just during the execution but also when streamlining of the business processes
continuously improving business operations.
Use Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
and cognitive technologies to augment
human-centric activities

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 What is a digital business platform

Question 10

HOW DOES A DIGITAL BUSINESS

PLATFORM SUPPORT SCALABILITY?
'A digital transformation isnt a single effort but rather a portfolio
of initiatives that combine to scale the change.
MCKINSEY viii

E
nterprise-wide digital transformation A digital business platform addresses this by
requires the execution of several initiatives to providing the ability to:
bring about holistic change. Often, scalability
is related to how applications built on a platform Innovate and experiment rapidly by allowing you
can support very high throughput. What is even to start small, test, validate and then scale fast
more important in the context of true digital
transformation is the question of how easily Harness the power of Cloud to provide an elastic
and rapidly can the platform support enterprise- and highly scalable platform
wide adoption so as to push change across the
business. Build expertise on the platform rapidly through
its ease of use and a short learning curve
A well-prioritized delivery strategy supported by
the right technology is essential in accelerating Re-use the knowledge and development effort
and scaling digital initiatives. across initiatives to build momentum

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 What is a digital business platform

YOUR QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE TO WHAT

TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN IMPLEMENTING
A DIGITAL BUSINESS PLATFORM

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 What is a digital business platform

THE LAST WORD

WHAT NEXT?
A
well-aligned digital business platform Agile: Bizagi enables collaboration between
is an integral element of any digital business and IT in rapidly building and
transformation. So, you need to ensure experimenting with process applications,
it has all the essential characteristics to deliver boosting operational productivity and speed
to your expectations and thereby, those of while maintaining IT control.
your customers. Get to know Bizagi See Bizagi in action,
Engaging: Bizagi empowers employees, no strings attached led by an expert
Bizagis agile process platform connects suppliers and partners with personalized and
people, applications, devices and information contextualized information at key moments,
to provide the engaging experience that enabling better decisions that improve the
digital customers demand. It supports the customer experience.
foundations of a digital business by delivering
experiences that are: Connected: Bizagi immediately wraps existing
IT systems with an agile process layer,
connecting your data, knowledge workers,
devices and IoT on a global scale, without the
need to rip and replace core systems

About Bizagi
Headquartered in the UK and with operations
across North America, Europe and Latin America,
Bizagi is a global leader in digital business
platforms. With a global user community of over
650,000 process pioneers, Bizagi has helped over
500 enterprises in 50 countries to survive and
i Gartner, Building a Digital Business Technology Platform
thrive in the digital age.
ii 2016 IDC FutureScape CIO Agenda Prediction 4: 70% Failure Rate of Siloed Digital Transformation Initiatives in 2018
iii George Westerman, Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation
iv George Westerman, Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation
v George Westerman, Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation
vi https://www.accenture.com/gb-en/insight-digital-transformation-age-customer
vii Gartner, Building a Digital Business Technology Platform
viii http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/nine-questions-to-help-you-get-your-digital-transformation-right
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Bizagi 2017