Ireland’s Digital Future: What’s Next for Businesses?
In a hyper-connected world, organisations across the European Union (EU) envision to become digitally sovereign by the year 2030. To advance the new digital decade in this region, the focus for Ireland and other countries is on four key areas[i] – digital transformation of businesses, improvement of digital skills, development of digital infrastructure, and the digitalisation of public services.
Ireland currently holds an overall strong position when it comes to digital economy in the Europe region. The small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and multinational enterprises (MNEs) on the island are playing a unique role in the execution of the OECD inclusive framework on BEPS [ii] that collectively addresses tax challenges of digitalisation. This move portrays Ireland’s ambition in setting a seamless pathway for digital economic activity through the creation of new job opportunities, driving infrastructure and robust cybersecurity best practices, and reinforcement of a low-carbon economy.
Ireland’s Potential for Business Transformation Initiatives
The digital economy in Ireland is running at two different speeds. While a small proportion of enterprises have fully embraced digitalisation, there is a need to accelerate and enhance digital adoption across Irish businesses with an associated productivity boost. This includes organisations addressing productivity gaps as a result of hybrid work environments and upskilling needs, increased connectivity for business usage, and digitalisation of public sector services.
Digital Upskilling with Platformisation
With the rise of hybrid (and remote) working models, enterprises in Ireland want to digitally upskill their remote employees to contribute to the digital decade, while employees want to utilise their newly acquired skills for upward-mobility opportunities. A unified digital workplace platform with an open architecture that is both extensible and scalable can enable a seamless and secure environment for employer-employee exchange. This, in turn, will facilitate the democratisation of upskilling drives and the subsequent increase in upward-mobility rates. Here, the right platformisation solution will allow enterprises to future-proof their remote-working initiatives.
Digital Infrastructure for IoT Connectivity and Monetisation of 5G Assets
The Digital Ireland Framework wagers on 5G to help the economy realise its digital transformation ambitions, and to position Ireland as a prime destination for international businesses. This means improved wireless network infrastructure that spans wide areas of enterprise operations, enabling a plethora of IoT use cases, such as industry 4.0 automation to cost-effective on-prem data computing.
A one-stop 5G enterprise solution that provides end-to-end services in enabling owned private wireless networks is the ideal way forward. It helps not only accelerate the monetisation of 5G assets, but also removes inefficiencies related to slow connectivity, and provides a strong roadmap to support the growing traffic demands for 5G establishment.
Evolved Citizen-Centric Public Sector Services
There has been a marked shift towards the use of application services for automated and self-service options across public sectors in Ireland. But there is still a lag in making real impact[iii] in citizen service delivery and resolution efficacy due to poor application performance management. A customised application performance management (APM) solution can help public sector enterprises ranging from healthcare to energy and utilities, and banking with end-to-end management of complex and distributed business-critical IT applications for seamless customer experiences.
THE NEXT
The world has changed with epic events – the pandemic as well as the advent of stunning technologies such as 5G and quantum computing and path breaking processes using robotic process automation and data science. The changes brought upon companies, people and governments are not evolutionary but revolutionary
In Ireland, many businesses are yet to fully utilise their digital potential. The pressing priority for these businesses would be to take a proactive approach to meet IT needs, rather than reactive, and this requires end-to-end technology solutions. With the right kind of technology implementation partner, Irish businesses can future-proof their digital presence starting from designing progressive businesses and modernising infrastructure and operations, to working towards a data-led business model for connected experiences.
So, what NEXT? How have we thought about delivering new solutions to address the needs of the new world we live in. We have to design solutions that address what might be the future of banking, financial services, insurance, manufacturing, energy and utilities, retail and so on.
And that is what we have done – by IMAGINING a future that we can deliver on. By crafting solutions, that are unique and market-making we deliver the Future. But in a pragmatic way that can be delivered NOW. And that is essentially our promise.
NXT.NOWTM: Unlocking the Digital Next for Businesses Now
Tech Mahindra’s NXT.NOWTM, a proprietary framework, can enable Irish businesses to tap opportunities with its three-pillar strategy – imagine, build, and run. This strategy can accommodate evolutionary change, deliver differentiators, and help businesses meet current and future digital targets by harnessing the power of emerging technologies through a holistic approach.
Across different industry verticals and with over 120k colleagues in 90+ countries, we are studying markets, best practices and trends, and crafting solutions that will offer our clients competitive dominance, not just parity or advantage. In short, we help companies Imagine a future, Build solutions and Run them, to deliver tangible value and outcomes.
And that is the meaning and promise of NXT.NOWTM.
