Software Engineering and Digital Transformation

- Role of Software Engineering In Digital Transformation

Nowadays the world is changing faster than we can imagine. With the rise of IoT (Internet of Things), machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and blockchain technologies, AR and VR Informational Technologies became a core component of all kinds of businesses, making the need to innovate and transform a necessary part of being competitive in the market.

Digital transformation is a process of implementing and using new and fast-changing digital technology to solve problems and improve business practices. It often relates to the use of cloud computing to reduce hardware, automation to reshape the workplace and integration of technology into all areas of business.

When we speak about digital transformation we can’t leave out software engineering as it is the base of all technology known to humankind. It’s duty is to bring the ideas of new-age technology to life and make sure that not only is it functional and can drive growth, but at the same time is meeting ethical standards and maintains positive impact. 

Just as software engineering plays a huge role in the world’s current digital transformation, digitization presents challenges (technical and organizational) that threaten the successful execution of successful projects.

- Transforming Software Testing for Digital Transformation

We're well past software "eating the world." Software has become irreversibly intertwined with the world. You can't find a modern enterprise that doesn't depend on software, or a business transaction that doesn't require software at some point in the end-to-end process. In the new world of digital business, companies who deliver differentiating customer/user experiences through software have the clear competitive advantage. Those who cannot are living on borrowed time. 

Traditional development and testing cycles have been a limiting factor for increasing the speed of creating and releasing new functionality as well as improving the quality of final releases. When much of a development team’s time is taken up with the looping, iterative cycle of design-develop-test-debug, a lot of creativity gets squeezed out of processes and people. Longer development cycles prevent new features—especially those specifically requested by customers—from being released on a timely basis. When customers have limited insight into how those features are being designed and implemented, they can be reluctant to implement them without extensive and time-consuming testing.

In response, every CIO is now focused on digital transformation initiatives that ensure the company is disrupting, not disrupted. From an IT perspective, this requires faster delivery of innovative software and greater agility—the ability to pivot as soon as you identify a new opportunity or challenge. From a quality perspective, it requires a strategic commitment to continuous quality and a deep-seated transformation across people, processes, and technology.

- Outdated and Inefficient Systems

Businesses increase the risk of an attack or breach by connecting legacy systems. When IT implements patchwork solutions to resolve operational issues, security vulnerabilities can be created inadvertently. 

As cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated alongside rapidly changing technologies, these outdated and inefficient systems become easy targets. 

This rapid evolution of cybersecurity threats means software engineers in the field - and those eager to join them - need to be up-to-date on the latest skills, strategies, and job opportunities in order to remain competitive.

- Digital Transformation Has Fundamentally Changed The Role Of Software

As data flows between enterprise applications, cloud-connected or SaaS software, and IoT devices, business risk is also growing exponentially. The Verizon 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) revealed that 43% of breaches were caused by web applications, more than double the amount in 2019. As digital transformation accelerates, so does the attack surface. Recent research by my company found three out of every four software applications contain at least one security defect. The speed of software development and delivery increases through automation, meaning security must also become faster and more automated. 

Digital transformation itself is meaningful, but numerous technology shifts and trends are occurring. Following three key technology trends will impact cybersecurity the most over the next five-plus years:

• Ubiquitous Connectivity: We are quickly moving into a world where everyone and everything is connected. As data flows between enterprise applications, cloud-connected or SaaS software, and IoT devices, business risk is growing dramatically. 
• Abstraction And Componentization: Software and technology continue to act as the backbone of modern business and society. As a result, businesses are continually seeking methods to innovate and build software faster. The pressure for speed has resulted in a trend in which development teams break down what used to be comprehensive applications into the smallest possible reusable blocks of logic — or microservices — in order to stitch them together into a multitude of business processes and workflows. This trend enables businesses to work synchronously on many things and drive reuse across the business, thereby increasing efficiency and speed. 
• Hyperautomation Of Software Delivery: Hypercompetitiveness in the market is driving the need to attain speed-to-value and wring out all inefficiencies in processes, including software development. And, as software development becomes more automated, so must all processes that interact with software delivery; they must also adapt and become hyperautomated, or continuous.

These trends net out two major impacts on business and society. Ubiquitous connectivity means we can expect massive growth in business and consumer risk. And second, abstraction and hyperautomation will fuel how businesses compete, where speed and time-to-market are competitive currency.

- Zero Trust

In a world where there is no longer a local network or where critical assets lay protected "behind the firewall," every digital relationship
should begin with the assumption of zero trust until trust is formally established. Trust should never be the default. As big monolithic applications get split up into microservices and moved to the cloud, zero-trust assumptions should extend to all third-party code (i.e., open-source or commercial libraries and components, outsourced development, external APIs that are being called, and even your own
microservices, unless they are locked away behind a firewall on a VPN). 

When everyone and everything is connected and demand for continuous software is at its highest, organizations will be forced to further simplify IT and development efforts. The subsequent increase in cloud adoption and componentization means a perpetually expanding attack surface. As the industry grapples with hyperautomation, we must consider the exponential expansion of our business risk and adapt our approach to stay secure.

[More to come ...]