Organizations of all sorts and sizes, across all vertical markets, and anywhere in the world are facing increased pressure to perform better. The introduction of new technologies results in consumers of goods and services demanding better products, and new ways of interacting with suppliers. This demand requires organizations to rethink their business models to revolutionize the customer experience. The ability to adapt and manage this business transformation and to achieve true agility is crucial for any organization to gain a competitive advantage, and to stay relevant. The requirement to focus on achieving the following outcomes has never been greater:

• Reduce costs and increase revenue
• Optimize go-to-market processes
• Improve customer experience and retention
• Gain industry share

A key enabler to gain customer mind share and achieve these outcomes is to adopt best in class technology solutions that enable organizations to develop modern applications, analyze buyer behavior and enhance customer interaction. The skill set required to excel as a Chief Information Officer (CIO) is no longer limited to technical knowledge but also includes deep business acumen to be a driving force on how technology can enable achieving the outcomes.

IT decision makers need to focus on digital transformation and the technology solutions they use must support the primary business goals of the organization. The IT environment must provide modern, secure, scalable, highly automated, and continuously available services. These services must accommodate access anywhere at any time, all while technology budgets shift from the traditional IT organization to other business units. These challenges have driven cloud adoption and data center convergence that we have seen in recent years.