Many CIOs will develop a holistic digital strategy in 2017

• Reflecting achievements made in 2016
• Many organizations will make moves in order to better compete in the digital economy

2016 proved to be an eventful year for Red Hat. As the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, Red Hat plays a key role in helping organizations around the world transform as open source becomes a de facto standard for innovation in IT.

As a nod to the role we play, Red Hat was again named to Forbes’ list of the “World’s Most Innovative Companies” earlier this year. 

Red Hat’s innovativeness was manifested in several ways this year. We advanced the company’s open hybrid cloud portfolio with key innovations in containers, OpenStack, virtualization, application development, cloud management, storage, and more.

Underscoring this, we were also recently recognized as a “Leader” in Gartner’s 2016 Magic Quadrant for Full Life Cycle API Management and in The Forrester Wave Report for Hybrid Cloud Management Solutions and Mobile Infrastructure Services.

In open source, the ecosystem plays a key role in offering customers broader choice. We are pleased to share that Red Hat advanced collaboration with key industry leaders, including Ericsson, Google, and Microsoft this year.

Taking a look back, in 2016 and the year prior, we also saw local enterprises signing on for Red Hat’s Training and Certification programs to help their IT teams be well-prepared to tackle critical real-world scenarios.

In addition, we also recognized a local customer, Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) as the 2016 Red Hat Innovation Awards APAC winner for Malaysia. TNB was awarded for embarking on an IT transformation journey to modernize its IT environment that was previously based on proprietary UNIX systems, into a modern open source platform based on Red Hat solutions.

Aside from that, in 2016, we also witnessed many organizations in Malaysia being receptive to the idea of embarking on a digital transformation journey by using new ways of developing, delivering and integrating applications as a response to the digital disruption we are seeing across industries.

Through digital transformation, organizations are meeting growing customer expectations for digital services, and moving to technology solutions - including open hybrid cloud solutions - that can help them improve business agility, flexibility and scalability.

IDC also predicts that digital transformation in Asia Pacific  (excluding Japan) may attain macroeconomic scale over the next three to four years, changing the way enterprises operate and reshaping the global economy. According to IDC, by 2020 half of the A1000 (APAC 1000 enterprises) will see majority of their business depending on their ability to create digitally-enhanced products, services and experiences. 2017 is expected to be a defining year for digital transformation.

I am optimistic that in the coming year, many organizations will make moves in order to better compete in the digital economy. Knowing there is a need to transform, I believe many CIOs will develop a holistic digital strategy in the upcoming year.

This should not only focus on IT infrastructure, but more so around the remodeling of their businesses to be more agile and innovative. In relation to this, open source technologies present an ideal approach in terms of flexibility, a reinvention of processes, faster innovation through ecosystem collaboration, and scalability.

Open source is fundamentally about being part of an ecosystem of IT leaders, advocates, developers, and partners who work together to build the future of IT. We believe that businesses in Malaysia will continue to see Red Hat as an enabler – delivering the speed, flexibility, and innovation that they need in order to thrive in the age of the customer.

Damien Wong is the  vice president and general manager of Red Hat (ASEAN)

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