Three application strategy investment suggestions to help companies improve user experience

Today, the Asia-Pacific region ranks second in the world in terms of the growth rate of the number of digital population. In Southeast Asia alone, 40 million people will start using the Internet in 2020, which brings a lot of market opportunities to enterprises. As we step into the digital world, "simplification", "support" and "convenience" have become the unanimous pursuit of enterprises in terms of user experience. A 2020 F5 research report found that 96% of Asia-Pacific respondents said that in the process of digitalization, they value "convenience" more than "security".

In the Asia-Pacific region, the rapid rise of popular mobile applications such as WeChat and TikTok and the establishment of a large user base also confirms the above conclusion. However, since the digital infrastructure and related resources (such as IT personnel) are still stagnant and backward, this has brought tremendous pressure to enterprises. In order to fill this resource gap, enterprises have promoted data-driven transformation and increased investment in application security and automated delivery technologies.

In today's world, technological innovation and progress are commonplace, and focusing on the following three key areas can solve business pain points.

Application strategy 1: Compete for cloud deployment and SaaS

Cloud has been high on the enterprise agenda over the past few years, and many companies are faced with the choice of on-premises or cloud architectures when modernizing their technology portfolios. In the 2021 F5 State of Application Strategy report, we noted that the number of applications deployed by enterprises in the cloud continues to grow, with 68% of enterprises and organizations worldwide already hosting at least some of their application security and delivery technologies in the cloud.

The cloud provides enterprises with flexibility, and now enterprises are beginning to consider the security advantages of the cloud as an important factor in choosing the cloud. With the cloud, enterprises can easily use artificial intelligence and machine learning to maintain real-time vigilance and detect new security threats in a timely manner, which was difficult to deal with with local deployment. We have noticed that more and more enterprises and organizations are using SaaS to improve flexibility and scalability across environments for security purposes, which has surpassed other technology investments and become the primary strategic investment for enterprises.
However, enterprises now need to focus on increasing the architectural complexity of SaaS and edge solutions to create continuity in multiple environments - from local deployment to cloud. In order to successfully integrate these elements into a consistent application strategy, enterprises need to improve their combined tools, business level, IT process and analytical capabilities in a flexible architecture. Jebsen Group has successfully achieved transformation and is able to better achieve security, consistency and efficiency in its complete technology system.

Application strategy 2: Make the solution more “edge”

Next we come to edge computing, a term that sounds a little more foreign than “cloud.” Edge computing can be defined as operations performed outside of a centralized data center, in the space between interconnected endpoints and the core IT environment.
With many businesses continuing to work remotely, employees and consumers are logging in from increasingly dispersed locations. With multiple points of connection, login latency, responsiveness, and security are becoming a challenge for most businesses today.
However, edge computing provides an important means for enterprises to shorten latency and improve the real-time response capabilities that are urgently needed by current applications, so as to fulfill their promises to users and bring satisfactory user experience. The benefits of edge computing are obvious. Among the companies surveyed, 76% are implementing or actively planning edge deployment to enhance application performance and data analysis capabilities.

Although edge seems to be the panacea for most enterprises that are committed to providing best-in-class application security and experience, the technology is still in its infancy and there is still a lot of work to be done to realize its full potential. Nevertheless, the rapid development of 5G networks in the Asia-Pacific region provides enterprises with a solid foundation to fully tap the potential of edge computing.

Application strategy 3: Telemetry technology that connects customers and business prospects

Globally, each connected car generates up to 500 million tweets, 294 billion emails, 5 billion searches, and 4 TB of data every day. It is estimated that by 2025, 463EB of data will be generated every day, equivalent to more than 200 million DVDs. Despite the huge amount of data we generate every day, some companies have not yet realized the full value of these datasets.
More than 90% of respondents said they lacked insights related to performance, security, and availability, and they wanted a clearer end-to-end view that current monitoring and analytics solutions struggle to provide. Using telemetry will make this process smoother.

Telemetry is the collection of measurements or other data at a remote point and its automatic transmission to a receiving device for monitoring. Leveraging telemetry can help companies turn large amounts of data into actionable business insights, which is critical to creating an adaptive application portfolio.

There is a strong desire to use AI to turn data into actionable insights. Nearly three-quarters of respondents would like to see AI make better use of telemetry data, while more than half want AI to enable applications that give organizations better defenses and the ability to respond to changing circumstances.

Due to the lack of skills and increasingly complex architectures, the emphasis on "infrastructure as code" can drive the development of automation, make it AI-assisted business, enhance its security and improve user experience. Some companies are already moving in this direction.
Starting in 2020, a key trend will be that consumers have higher and higher expectations of enterprises, and they want to have a secure and seamless experience when using all current applications. For most companies, it is critical to make the right technology investments to meet the growing demands of consumers. In order to make greater progress in the later stages of digital transformation, companies need to build capabilities in automation, telemetry technology, and cultural change, which will help business units make strategic decisions with data together with IT as an integration partner and enabler, and ultimately develop a highly adaptable and first-class application portfolio.