Business Goals, Problems, Opportunities…
| Cloud security | Sub-domain of Cloud Computing, encompassing all aspects related to the security of and cryptography in the cloud, whether private, public or hybrid. |
| Cyber Security | Technologies, processes and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access (e.g. in the context of cyber warfare). |
| Robustness & High Availability | High availability is a characteristic of a system, which aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance, usually uptime, for a higher than normal period. Modernization has resulted in an increased reliance on these systems. |
| Digital Transformation | “The creation of new business designs by blurring the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds due to the convergence of people, business and things” (Gartner). New technologies like IoT, analytics, machine learning, … are used to realize the digital transformation. |
| Privacy & GDPR compliance | Due to technological evolutions, protection of personal data is moving target that should continuously have our attention. Since may 2018, the GDPR is in force, which provides the legal framework, including obligations an dpotentially fines for enterprises. |
| Strategic Business Analytics | Driven by corporate strategy, make use of state-of-the-art Analytics (techniques and platforms) to drive processes and support (informed, measured, evaluated) policy-making in strategic domains. Transcends what is possible with classical Statistics or BI. Increasingly makes use of AI. |
| Cloud Service Brokerage | Providing support with added value, such as security and integration, to help customers of Smals use cloud services efficiently and correctly. |
| Rebalancing Trust | Technologies such as blockchain allow for rebalancing trust, which facilitates colaboration between entities that do not fully trust each other. |
| Event Storming | Proliferation of APIs and integrations necesitates better coordination between products/teams. Event storming, in which a business process is “stormed out” as a series of domain events, can rapidly identify key concepts in a problem space and align a variety of stakeholders. |
| Cloud Migration | As the pressure to move solutions to the Public Cloud increases, so does the inherent danger of vendor lock-in. Therefore, Cloud Migration strategies and techniques become a more important defensive measure to safeguard an enterprise’s flexibility in choosing Cloud Service Providers. |
| Data Quality | Tools, methods and architectures to evaluate, improve and monitor data quality and to manage information, taking into account cost-benefit ratio and fitness for use. (Includes Master Data Management) |
| Open Data | Data interoperability based on documented “open data” for citizens, enterprises, … (and in some cases based on web semantics norms) |
| Internet of Things / Everything | With the Internet of Things (IoT), many (electromechanical) objects, along with a vast amount of sensors and actuators, become connected to the internet and generate an abundance of data, allowing all kinds of new business. |
| Business Process Management | With more and more services and processes being automated and integrated, management of of it all becomes paramount. BPM is evolving from simple control towards a suite of tools combining traditional automation with management, but also integrating AI. |
| Optimization | Organizing exising processes or sets of processes in a structurally more efficient way. |
| Self-Sovereign Identity | Self-sovereign identity (SSI) enables people to store personal information in a location of their choice. This information can then be provided to third parties on request. Blockchain technologies allow decentralized identities based on SSI that are not owned by a single provider. |
| Civic Engagement | The use of IT to stimulate voluntary participation and self-organization of citizens to create societal added value. The citizen can assume one or more roles, such as data provider. |
| Continuous Experience | Users can interact with an application in a multistep sequence that may last through an extended period of time. The experience seamlessly flows across multiple devices and interaction channels, including non-digital and analog ones, that fulfill the customer journey. |