3 Key Topics: Digital Business, Enterprise Modernization, & EQengineered

Fireside Chat with EQengineered’s Director of Engineering | Microsoft Practice Lead, Russ Harding.

1. As enterprise organizations continue to transform and become digital businesses, what are the key technology areas on which they should focus to enable growth and the ability of the enterprise to compete and thrive?

There's a lot to unpack in this question. Digital businesses will grow and thrive based on the data that they were able to collect and how meaningfully they are able to transform information back to their customers and users. The ability and approach to do those things will vary based off the type of business and customer that each enterprise may have.

Some specific technologies that I think about when we are talking about the transformation to a more digital ready enterprise are modern development frameworks like Angular, React, .NET (Core), Node.js, Python and complimented by cloud platforms like Azure and AWS that make it easy to access powerful hosting services local to your users. These are proven technology stacks that you can easily find documentation, people, and training.

Making use of UX is also extremely helpful in understanding how users and customers are interacting with the current platforms they are using, and maybe just as importantly, what are those users doing to work around limitations in that platform to make the data useful to them. Is there commonality there and how can that be addressed.

Lastly, depending on your user base IoT and mobile applications may be a good way to bring data and computing to edge users as well as bring a lot of that data back into your won data centers where machine learning and other Intelligent operations that can help inform your organization.

2. There is a lot of enterprise discussion about modernization. What are the key technology challenges being faced in today's environment and how can organizations overcome these obstacles?

I think some of the challenges being faced by Organizations as they modernize is the variety of technology options that are available to them. It's important to take some time to evaluate different technology options, paths and platforms available. Making a decision that is going to get you to market the fastest with the least friction and allow you to continue to improve and deliver to your customers. Far too often I have worked with teams that have used technology simply because it’s novel and possibly fun to learn. These tech stacks can be very effective but add learning curves and complexity which means slow or difficult to go to market. For example Machine learning is a fantastic technology when wielded in the right situations. But not all applications require Machine learning. Sometimes a simple interface the users can navigate gets you to market faster.

Inside an organization and especially inside a technology group, it can sometimes be hard to always understand and empathize with our end users in a way that creates the best possible applications. All this to say, take your time and do your diligence? Sometimes simple is really the best solution.

3. Who is EQengineered, what are EQengineered's core competencies, and what makes EQengineered unique in the marketplace?

EQengineered is are an organization that wants to understand your challenges and frustrations, and to share in your successes. It's important to us that we take the time to understand your business, understand your team, and understand the needs of your organization so that we can work together to arrive at the best possible solutions to your business challenges. We all embed with you and your organization will speak plainly about challenges and opportunities that we see available to us.  We'll work together with your teams to figure out the right solutions to your technological challenges.

We excel in cloud technologies, Modernization of legacy systems to newer technology stacks. Simplification of your workflow to arrive at a better outcome for you and your customers. Analysis of Large data streams into meaningful information. Importantly, we help to see the forest through the trees, and to cut through the noise that is slowing your teams.