Many businesses have had to pivot towards a digital transformation to stay afloat during the economic downturn post-pandemic. The shift not only accelerated the adoption of digital technologies but also met the demands of a new market. 

But what exactly does this digital transformation mean for businesses? 

Digital transformation is revolutionizing organizations, from adopting innovative technologies to strategic decision-making. It streamlines processes, increases efficiency, and establishes a cultural shift by reshaping how organizations work. 

It also allows organizations to reach a wider audience and tap into new markets, helping them thrive in the modern economy. 

However, implementing digital transformation requires significant time, resources, and money. Plus, it requires organizations to rethink their business models and processes. 

But one thing is for sure if you’re willing to take the plunge, the benefits of digital transformation far outweigh the risks, positioning organizations for long-term success in the digital age. 

But before that, you need to understand two critical aspects of digital transformation:

1. Customer demand drives change

Digital transformation incorporates a shift in the way organizations think, function, and operate. 

But what inspires this mindset change in any organization? 

It’s the customer’s requirement. Any fundamental business change ultimately depends on the demands of the customer. Is there a way to simplify and accelerate the demand? If yes, then how can you implement it and solve their problems? That’s what drives the change. 

2. Digitalization and transformation are two different things

Digitalization refers to using technologies that involve replacing traditional methods with digital ones, like using Google Docs, which allows faster communication and collaborative editing, or using online communication tools instead of in-person meetings. 

On the other hand, digital transformation refers to a holistic change in how an organization operates to adapt to new market trends and customer needs. 

It goes beyond simply digitalizing the existing system and processes. Transformation involves rethinking and realigning structures and systems to become more efficient, agile, and responsive upon adopting new technologies.

Why Learning and Adopting Digital Transformation Is Crucial for Businesses?

Digital transformation is crucial for businesses because it allows them to remain competitive, rethink their strategies, improve efficiency, and better serve their customers. 

It enables businesses to deliver a seamless and convenient customer experience in today’s business environment, reach new markets, analyze data and improve their services. 

In addition, it helps businesses to cope with the changing market condition and regulatory requirements and prepare for future disruptions.

Here are 4 examples that show how leading organizations use and benefit from digital transformation.

Digital transformation success stories

1. Farmer’s Insurance uses drones to inspect and assess the damages. Cloud computing enables drones to connect to the company and transmit data much faster.  
2. Tesla moved towards electrification and autonomous driving due to concerns about global warming and the world’s overdependence on oil. It created a new type of competition for car manufacturers. 
3. Walmart’s digital transformation allowed customers to shop from their homes or anywhere else. But they can now simply use voice command devices like Google Home. 
4. J.P. Morgan entered the metaverse through Onyx Lounge in Decentraland, a metaverse for the blockchain world, to operate as a virtual bank.

5 Unmissable Reasons Why Digital Transformation Is a Must for Your Business Growth

Digital transformation improves an organization’s structures, systems, workflow, and culture. 

Across every level, the change brings together data across areas for more efficient collaboration. Automating workflows and advanced processing, like AI and ML, enable companies to connect the dots on the customer journey in a way that wasn’t possible earlier. 

1. Fulfils customers’ on-demand services expectations

Customers appreciate the convenience and flexibility of accessing on-demand services. Businesses that offer such services may be better positioned to meet customer demands and stand out in the market. 

The rise in the gig economy has further driven the trend of on-demand services such as online booking, real-time tracking, and communication tools capable of meeting customer demands.  

2. Ensures security

Businesses rely on technology and the internet for their business-critical operations. A security breach could disrupt operations and lead to financial losses, legal liabilities, and reputational damage for the business. 

By prioritizing security, businesses can minimize the risks of data breaches and cyber-attacks and maintain the trust of stakeholders and customers.  

3. Accelerates decision-making

There is a greater volume of data for businesses because of the Internet of Things (IoT). Now, with the right tools, this data can be used to gain insights and make faster decisions. Using AI and machine learning technology could be crucial to an organization’s ability to process big data.

4. Boosts employee efficiency

It is crucial to provide employees with productive tools in a world dominated by a remote or hybrid work culture. 

Platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams have become powerful tools for communication, collaboration, and implementation of strategies. These not only save time and enable efficient work but encourage teamwork. 

5. Boosts business partnerships

Companies are becoming dependent on working with consultants, freelancers, and sub-contractors, intending to produce high-quality services and products. 

Previously, managing multiple partners required a lengthy process. Now, with systems like digital contracts and eSignatures, companies can effectively manage workflow, ensuring the outcome is accurate as well as transparent. This increases the chances of scaling up and strengthens professional partnerships. 

6 challenges of adopting a digital transformation

While digital transformation is crucial for businesses, it can be a complex and challenging process too. There are several key challenges that organizations may face as they embark on this journey, and some of these are:

1. Lack of a transformation strategy

Without a strategy, a digital transformation isn’t sustainable. Replacing manual processes with an advanced system needs to be thought through and explained to the employees. 

Before being carried away with the new age developments, knowing how you can improve your organization and streamline the processes is imperative. 

2. Complex technologies and software

Innovations and technologies can be intimidating as it throws an enormous challenge for organizations to implement and redefine work structures. The perspective change can pose a massive challenge for employees if the systems are not in place during the early stages of transformation. 

3. Adopting new tools and systems

Organizations must educate and provide a comprehensive onboarding process before adopting new tools and systems. 

Employees can resist the change if they aren’t informed of the reasons for adopting a new method. It can be helpful to provide employees with support and training to speed up the process.

4. Constantly evolving customer needs

Customer demands keep evolving with time, influenced by desire, trends, habits, and more. By the time you implement a new transformation, your customer demand may have changed. 

So, before integrating a framework for adopting new technologies, you must be prepared for such a situation or have a backup plan. 

5. Budget constraints

Without a proper transformation strategy, investing in digital transformation can add to the company’s budget. So before investing in digital transformation, it is important to consider your long-term goals, the potential return on investment (ROI), and whether you have the budget to support the investment. 

Digital transformation can be a significant financial commitment, so it is essential to carefully assess these factors before proceeding.

6. Concerns over security

Digital transformation involves integrating data into a centralized system, increasing the risks of cyberattacks. Having a plan in place to mitigate these threats is crucial. 

Online attacks target poor and vulnerable systems, so bringing in a cybersecurity expert may help identify your system’s weaknesses. 

How can Array Help Organizations transform digitally?

The growing adoption of digital transformation is driven by several factors, including the increasing availability and use of digital technologies, the changing expectations of customers and employees, and the need for organizations to stay competitive in an increasingly digital economy.

Companies that embrace digital transformation can stay on top by leveraging the power of technology to improve efficiency, reduce costs, increase innovation speed, and meet customer expectations. 

Array’s enterprise-grade security and application delivery solution allows your business to evolve digitally without compromising security.

This allows you to helps your employees work remotely without worrying about hackers infiltrating the networks; provide remote access to your applications and assets securely; and ensure scalability, high availability, and performance at all times.

To know more about our Solutions, contact our sales team today.

IT teams often face the conundrum of prioritizing either security or performance. Unfortunately, when security takes precedence, performance usually takes the backseat. This doesn’t sound good for any thriving business, right? 

Take SSL certificates, for example. A secure socket layer (SSL) is a cryptographic protocol. It protects data as it travels from the client’s browser to the servers. Although SSL is an excellent solution to encrypt and safeguard data, it can cause latency. This is because when a client sends a request to the server, it has to decrypt the information, check for any anomalies, re-encrypt it, and respond to the client. And because SSL decryption and re-encryption is a compute-intensive task, the servers can slow down as the traffic spikes.

So how can IT teams enhance website and application performance while ensuring data integrity? By deploying SSL offloading. Let’s explore more about it.

What is SSL Offloading?

To understand SSL offloading, let’s first comprehend how SSL connection works:

1. When a client requests access to any web application/website with a valid SSL certificate, the browser and web server initiate an SSL handshake.
2. In the handshake process, the browser looks if the server is using a legitimate SSL certificate issued by a trusted third party.
3. Then public and private keys are used to encrypt and decrypt the information and ensure secure communication.
4. Once the above steps are completed, a third key, called the session key, is created.
5. Now that the server and browser have established a secure connection, safeguarded communication can take place.

So, where does SSL offloading come into the picture?

SSL certificates use cryptographic keys for the task of decryption and encryption. A few years back, one of the most common cryptographic keys used was RSA. They had increasing key lengths like 1024 bits, or 2048 bits. However, more efficient cryptographic keys are ECC (elliptic curve cryptography).  

While ECC is an efficient SSL offloading method, it’s still a compute-intensive task. So when a server is tasked with this activity, it becomes sluggish.

That’s where SSL offloading comes into play. 

SSL offloading relieves the server burden by terminating the encryption-decryption task to a dedicated security appliance. This appliance is usually an ADC (application delivery controller). It’s placed between the client’s browser and the server. This ADC will receive client requests, decrypt the traffic and finally, send it to the server.

SSL offloading is necessary for businesses like banks, eCommerce, healthcare institutes, or SaaS. They handle a massive amount of concurrent traffic and have to ensure the integrity of their client’s data.

How Does SSL Offloading Work?  

SSL offloading happens in one of the two ways:

1. SSL Termination

First, the client request reaches the ADC in a secured HTTPS format. Then, the ADCs check if the traffic is legitimate and is not a hacker disguised as a genuine client. 

The data is then transmitted through HTTP or plain text to the server. The encryption gets removed, leaving the server with the task of reviewing requests and providing responses.

Despite being in plain text, the transmission cannot be exploited by hackers because HTTP communication takes place within a firewall-protected framework. However, this method is not recommended for businesses that handle sensitive customer information like social security numbers, addresses, and banking details.

The primary purpose of this method is to accelerate server speed.

2. SSL Bridging 

The initial process of SSL bridging is similar to that of termination. First, the client request meets ADC in a secured HTTPS format. Then, ADC decrypts the data, and analyzes the packet content for load balancing, any malware or anomalies. Next, the SSL bridging method re-encrypts the data before sending it to the server. 

The server decrypts the information, responds to the client query, and re-encrypts it before sending it to the ADC. 

In this method, the information remains secure throughout the process. It’s helpful for businesses dealing with sensitive client information.

Lastly, both the methods mentioned above aim to serve a single goal: to relieve the servers off their existing burden. It enhances the performance of web apps without compromising information security.

Benefits of SSL Offloading

SSL offloading is handled by a third-party security device. It not only ensures accelerating SSL but also enhances performance. Here are a few benefits of SSL offloading:

• Ensures that websites and applications are secured. It protects them against internet-based threats like DDoS and man-in-the-middle.
• Maintains server health by balancing load among various servers. So, when the traffic spikes, servers don’t get overwhelmed and exhausted. This also ensures scalability.
• Maintains high availability by preventing server overload and downtime.
• Accelerates SSL connection and boosts performance. 

Array Networks SSL Intercept

Array Networks provides industry-leading third-party security devices. It enables IT teams to gain visibility into blind spots created by SSL encryption. This device helps relieve the server’s stress and serves as a load balancer, ensuring high performance and availability.

Our SSL intercept comes with multiple deployment options and can be centrally managed.

To know more about our SSL intercept, contact our sales team today!