Accelerating Trusted Cloud Transformation
Key Points
- Howard Bourville of IBM opened the virtual London Tech Week, sharing how the pandemic forced him to juggle full‑time work and homeschooling his seven‑year‑old son.
- He stressed that digital interaction is no longer optional—customers now expect instant, seamless, and secure experiences in every transaction.
- Trust, security, and data protection are the foundations of successful digital relationships, especially for highly regulated sectors such as banking, telecom, healthcare, and government.
- The pandemic has dramatically accelerated cloud adoption, with IBM research showing 62 % of executives planning to speed up digital transformation over the next two years.
- Despite this surge, most enterprises are still in the early stages of their cloud journeys, indicating significant growth potential ahead.
Full Transcript
# Accelerating Trusted Cloud Transformation **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ7beeCDpyo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ7beeCDpyo) **Duration:** 00:14:53 ## Summary - Howard Bourville of IBM opened the virtual London Tech Week, sharing how the pandemic forced him to juggle full‑time work and homeschooling his seven‑year‑old son. - He stressed that digital interaction is no longer optional—customers now expect instant, seamless, and secure experiences in every transaction. - Trust, security, and data protection are the foundations of successful digital relationships, especially for highly regulated sectors such as banking, telecom, healthcare, and government. - The pandemic has dramatically accelerated cloud adoption, with IBM research showing 62 % of executives planning to speed up digital transformation over the next two years. - Despite this surge, most enterprises are still in the early stages of their cloud journeys, indicating significant growth potential ahead. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ7beeCDpyo&t=0s) **IBM Leader on Pandemic Digital Shift** - Howard Bourville highlights how COVID‑19 forced personal and professional life online, using his experience homeschooling his son to illustrate the urgency for companies to adopt digital/instant‑gratification services through IBM’s hybrid‑cloud strategy. ## Full Transcript
hello my name is howard bourville and
i'm here from ibm
um thank you for opening up your homes
to me as we kick off london tech week
virtually this year as a brit who lives
in new york city i'm delighted that i
have the opportunity to connect with you
even if it's via our virtual world in
the midst of a global pandemic
life has certainly changed and like many
of you my family and i have also been
balancing
work and home life these are
unprecedented times
and when we think about it all our
interactions with friends family
co-workers customers and become mostly
digital
if i draw upon my own personal
experience since march of this year i've
been operating as a first grade teacher
for my seven-year-old son
that experience for me has been very
challenging and also even more so
challenging for my son who could not be
more delighted when the summer vacation
started
and he had the opportunity to get his
first year inexperienced teacher off his
back
equally i was delighted to have that
burden lifted when i joined ibm in there
to lead the hybrid cloud
business the um but i'm sure we've all
got our own personal stories of a
similar nature
and it shows the importance of us being
digital it's no longer an option for
companies
as we trade in this way and we interact
in this way and if you're in a digital
business you're in the business of
instant gratification
providing uninterrupted services and
availability is table stakes
whether it's an equity trader performing
a trade or a driver swiping a credit
card at a gas
station we as consumers expect all our
transactions and interactions to be
seamless and secure
and simply put every digital interaction
matters and every digital business has
to become an experienced business
if you have a positive enhances and
improves the relationship and if you
have a negative one it diminishes it
at the center of all of this is trust
security and data protection at the top
of mind not
only for our customers but also for
businesses to protect the actual
relationships that we have
and this enables the experiences but
businesses face unique challenges when
it comes to balancing innovation
and regulatory compliance especially
those in highly regulated industries
like banking
telecommunications healthcare and
government
and in a new world amidst the pandemic
we see that the pace of cloud adoption
has accelerated at a greater speed for
businesses as they become more digital
of all sizes and in all industries
so they can emerge smarter and stronger
through this current period
we see within ibm research that 62
percent of executives now plan to
accelerate digital transformation
efforts over the next two years
and we increasingly see this within our
customer base
i do believe that we will continue to
see this acceleration to cloud to drive
transformation
by enterprises across the world in every
industry
and we're still very much in the early
stages of cloud adoption
for most companies the journey has
barely begun and that's evidenced by
research
where only a small group of companies
have moved around 20 percent of their
applications to a cloud construct
this shows that we're ending chapter one
and entering chapter two
and those workloads have been primarily
sensitive to less sensitive data and
applications
but as we move into chapter two where
companies look around all of their
business processes
and their mission-critical workloads to
optimize the cloud and everything within
their supply chains to core banking
systems
and all the other elements within their
businesses enterprises grapple with
modernizing operations
the benefits of an enterprise's digital
transformation must be balanced by the
certainty that it will be
sustainable deliver value and deliver
continued innovation for years to come
in that context the strong architectural
strategy is at the heart of this
decision
and this is where ibm plays very
strongly there are many challenges that
businesses faces around
digital transformation from how they can
address the calcified business processes
to legacy workloads that are hard to
migrate and the importance of addressing
the full
enterprise cloud journey it can seem a
little bit daunting
and as a former cto of a large bank in
the us i understand the challenges that
many financial services companies
and other industries have firsthand like
running mission critical workloads
into the cloud and knowing the
importance of a trusted platform
we see this need for security interest a
common theme across
all of our clients and with a hundred
plus years of history with working
with all of the world's largest
enterprises and governments
we see several clients working with us
at ibm today to help them drive their
hybrid
cloud journey as we progress in this
digital transformation journey
there are two world ways to look as
enterprises adopt
the cloud you can take the wrong
approach which will be a dystopian
future where you build a series of peace
parts and create frankenstein's monster
as it relates to control if you take the
right architectural approach you can
take a more utopian path
with a wrong approach it will be an
issue riddled with complexity
and disconnected peace parts put
together in the end of chapter one of
cloud companies would have dabbled with
several different clouds for less
critical things with no controls in
place and with greater exposure to cyber
threats
not necessarily because the platforms
are inherently insecure
but because they're too complex to
handle
the economics of this architecture will
also spiral out of control
as customers are locked into proprietary
environments and most importantly when
you think about it
customers give their most precious
commodity which is their data
and they want to protect it at all costs
so in the frankenstein's model of poor
architecture
the customer data is not always
protected as mission critical workloads
shift to cloud you have to have
controlled
architectures in place
the utopian future is a cloud that is
one that's open
hybrid cloud architecture built upon
strong architectural principles
and one that harnesses the power of open
and enables enterprises to get the
benefits of cloud such as agility
developer productivity so you can
deliver features to your customers
at the moment of ideas and cost
efficiency
giving you access to data but in a
secure way where a customer data is not
compromised at any cost
you can only do that with the right
architecture and this is how we at ibm
are engaging with our clients as they
embark on their digital transformation
journeys
taking them down a utopian path in fact
we believe that the hybrid cloud is a
1.2 trillion
opportunity in this market and this is
all about helping our clients bridge the
gap of their data
and components between on-premise
private cloud and public cloud services
several of these clients are right here
in europe including the uk government
and like many industries facing unique
effects of 19
the public sector continues to undergo a
rabbit
rapid digital transformation to the
meeting groin demands and is also tasked
with doing so
in the most secure way possible meeting
strict regulations
to continue serving all constituents
during the pandemic
we are working with the uk government
and the central government organizations
including local authorities education
and the national health service
to deliver essential innovative
cloud-based services to british citizens
we've also been working with financial
services organizations such as bmp
parapart
coca-cola european partners and daimler
to help them shift to hybrid cloud
and manage mission critical workloads
just last year we announced a
significant collaboration with bank of
america
launching the ibm cloud for financial
services
establishing ibm's cloud policy
framework
for the financial services industry with
a consistent set of built-in controls
for banks to seamlessly and securely
adopt a cloud
with all regulatory controls and
compliances embedded in it
last month we shared that bnp parabar
has joined us and ibf as one of ibm's
anchor clients across
europe helping banks adopt hybrid cloud
with an annual i.t spend of more than
six billion euros bnp is driving
technological
advancement to stay ahead as one of
europe's largest banks
serving nearly 33 million customers bnp
parabar has worked with ibm on its
journey to cloud with a massive private
cloud
undertaking to begin to drive digital
transformation
and now it's adopted adoption of hybrid
cloud with ibm
ibm's cloud for financial services
switching gears
to another industry with pandemic
consumer industries experienced a
massive shift
in buying behavior online grocery
shopping alone
saw a 30 spike globally responding
quickly to the industry's latest changes
the coca-cola european partners the
world's largest
coca-cola bottler teamed with us to
drive its digital transformation
with open hybrid cloud leveraging ibm's
public cloud
and red hat openshift to help enhance
its experience for its customers
and also ensure that it could be very
agile in this very challenging
environment
one more example from the auto industry
and according to a recent survey from
ibm
half of automotive executives surveyed
said that this to succeed
or even survive in the next 10 years
they need to reinvent their
organizations with digital technologies
to ensure they don't just survive but
thrive leading automaker
daimler adopted a hybrid cloud strategy
based upon ibm's technology
to drive better customer experiences
securing their data
and that of their customers with ibm
cloud was at the heart of their decision
making
at the core of this open ecosystem is
open innovation
not only are we working with these
enterprises but
also supports the service providers all
over the world like adobe
sap vmware and others to drive
collaboration
innovation around cloud underpinning all
of this work has been the unique
security and compliance needs
which are top of mind for businesses and
consumers
security is always a primary concern
that customers have
and you have to look at the many threat
vectors where bad situations can arise
and threaten your security we work with
our clients to cover
all of these through our dedicated cyber
security practice
which is one of the strongest in the
world
and we're very sensitive to the needs of
our customers data
it's their data not ours and that's
evidenced by capabilities like keep your
own
key encryption keys where the customer
has the keys to
encrypt better we don't even when
they're in our physical data centers
so the only person that can get access
to your data is you
this is a unique differentiator in terms
of how we think about security compared
to any other peer that we have
enterprises cannot be faced with an
either or decision
the innovation they need to drive
forward must be balanced with security
compliance capabilities that address
unique industry and geography
regulations and to accelerate any hybrid
cloud journey
a foundation on open technologies is key
for ibm open has always been at the
center of any innovation
we believe our partners and clients
should not be looked into
locked into one vendor and should have a
choice
as many of you know ibm acquired red hat
last year
in one of the largest technology
acquisitions of all time
we set out to reframe the cloud
marketplace and have completely
transformed
our portfolio to give clients the unique
ability to build
mission critical applications once and
run them anywhere
via red hat openshift together
ibm and redhat are helping establish
linux containers and kubernetes as the
new standard
the fabric that can bridge and tie
together all of the different
public and private clouds
chapter 2 of your digital transformation
opens up opportunities for you to
capitalize on the next frontier of
innovation
5g edge computing and quantum
with 5g and edge computing companies are
able to push the envelope even further
on innovation and trends
that create uninterrupted data-driven
experiences for consumers
with 5g we embark upon an enterprise
mode of bandwidth that will unfold new
opportunities across a variety of
industries
when you think about it cloud currently
is a centralized capability
but with 5g you can have cloud in a
branch and several different edge
environments
in fact we're already working with
several clients around cloud satellite
a unique capability that ibm will make
available next month
enabling clients to accelerate their
move to cloud with a consistent set of
cloud services anywhere
on premise at the edge or on any cloud
cloud satellite is all about fulfilling
the promise of the 5g europe
all underpinned by artificial
intelligence which will glean
insights from data to deliver on the
enhanced experience
and 5g and edge will unleash the future
of factory floors
banks sports medicine and much more
quantum computing will also one day help
us tackle problems beyond the reach of
today's computers
ibm has doubled the performance of our
quantum computers
compared to last year's model a key step
in delivering on the promise of these
revolutionary machines
as we announced late last month this
step in delivering on the promise of
revolutionary machines
the opportunities are endless for the
next frontier of consumers experiences
hybrid cloud artificial intelligence
5g and edge computing will mark the
genesis of new enterprise applications
some of which are yet to be imagined
that will have a massive impact on all
industries and changing people's lives
and experiences for the better
as we march forward through such
unprecedented times
businesses need confidence that each
digital transaction
they power for us for our families and
for our economies
is successful secure and compliant
as consumers we need the confidence too
that because one bad customer experience
and we've moved on to the next option
you