Sustaining Business Continuity with Digital Resilience

IDC Regional Webinar

July 23, 2020

Overview

While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented levels of disruption to the region, it has also shone a light on the critical role of digital transformation (DX) in ensuring business continuity. Indeed, DX-savvy organizations are experiencing the least disruption as they were far better prepared to face the challenges that lay in wait.

As the situation continues to evolve, more and more enterprises will look to rethink their business continuity strategies, with an eye on stabilizing their critical infrastructure and improving their response to unforeseen events. Online collaboration tools, cloud-based platforms, and secure remote access will all be central to this process, as will improvements in infrastructure resiliency and disaster recovery.

Agility is key, and IT leaders must now look to adjust to the new—and constantly evolving—requirements of an increasingly remote workforce. The challenges posed by COVID-19 will drive long-lasting changes in the way businesses operate; as such, business continuity must now be viewed as the top digital transformation priority for any organization looking to survive and thrive in this new reality.

Agenda

Time Event & Speakers
10:55

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11:00

Welcome Address

Mark Walker

Associate Vice President, South Africa, IDC
11:05

The Relationship Between IT Resilience and Business Continuity

Steven Frantzen

Senior Vice President (EMEA) & Managing Director (CEMA), IDC
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the importance of business continuity plans. In the face of crises in this digital age, the ability to continue doing business seamlessly has become inextricably linked to the resilience of an organization’s IT infrastructure. Those with agile and scalable cloud-based platforms have been able to continue doing business remotely, while maintaining the security of their networks. Any organization looking to get ahead in today’s digital age requires a tried and tested IT infrastructure that is able to drive its overall business strategy during times of crisis.

Session 1: Security

11:15

Re-thinking the Evolution of Cyber Risk

Brian Pinnock

Director: Sales Engineering, Mimecast
Cyber risk has grown faster than our investment in and deployment of appropriate security controls and the gap is widening. Several years ago, before most organizations had embarked on their digital transformation and cloud journeys, cyber risk was perceived as low. Threat actors were relatively less well organized and had a limited set of attack tools. Organizations presented a limited attack surface because most information technology was on premise and behind security controls like firewalls. That has all changed. Threat actors have become both more sophisticated and diverse as well as have access to a wider array of cyber-attack tools than ever before. We are now in an era where most organizations have made significant progress in their cloud and digital journeys. We have made less significant progress in understanding and assessing the consequential impact that cloud and digital transformation has had on cyber risk. The impact on an organization’s brand, compliance, finances and business operation can be immense.

11:30

Enabling Safe and Sustainable Digital Transformation

Neil Cosser

Country Manager – CPL – Africa, Thales
Today’s enterprises depend on the cloud, data and software in order to make decisive decisions. That is why the most respected brands and largest organizations in the world rely on Thales to help them protect and secure access to their most sensitive information and software wherever it is created, shared or stored – from the cloud and data centers to devices and across networks. Our solutions enable organizations to move to the cloud securely, achieve compliance with confidence, and create more value from their software in devices and services used by millions of consumers every day. We are the worldwide leader in data protection, providing everything an organization needs to protect and manage its data, identities and intellectual property – through encryption, advanced key management, tokenization, and authentication and access management. Whether it’s securing the cloud, digital payments, blockchain or the Internet of Things, security professionals around the globe rely on Thales to confidently accelerate their organization’s digital transformation. Thales Cloud Protection & Licensing is part of Thales Group.

11:45

Enabling Remote Work and Business Continuity in the New Reality

Colin Erasmus

Modern Workplace Business Group Lead, Microsoft
In this session we will cover how to Enable people and teams to be productive from anywhere securely, taking a look at aspects such as Collaboration tools; Employee Communication options as well as how to make productivity applications available.

12:00

Rethinking Cyber-Security in the Digital Age

Kabelo Makwane

Managing Executive for the Cloud, Hosting and Security, Vodacom Business
In the new digital world, how we look at securing our transforming environment is also in transition. The current global crisis invoked response at speed and scale, which exposed multiple gaps in security programs, and brought novel challenges to the forefront. Building cyber-resilience in “the new normal” and ensuring business continuity requires updated risk metrics and threat exposure re-evaluated, while the need to build digital trust takes on even greater importance as digital relationships become pervasive. Today, security must maintain a strategic focus in line with broader enterprise strategy and be a key partner to the business in enabling secure digital transformation for remote workers accessing corporate applications and data from outside a secure perimeter against cybercriminals probing for any vulnerability through which to penetrate the network.

Session 2: Agility

12:15

How to Build a Sustainable, Resilient Recovery across your Organisation post Covid

Lee James

Chief Technology Officer (EMEA), Rackspace Technology
As the world moves one step at a time towards “business as usual” how do you build a sustainable recovery across your people, processes and technology offerings that will not only delight your internal teams but also provide the right platform to maximize customer growth.

Session 3: Is Managed Cloud Computing a New Reality for Enterprises?

12:30

Panel Discussion: Is Managed Cloud Computing a New Reality for Enterprises?

Mark Walker

Associate Vice President, South Africa, IDC

Danie Thom

Cloud Platform Specialist, Red Hat

Dr. Joseph Sevilla

Director ICT, @iLabAfrica, Strathmore University

Prasanna Burri

Group CIO, Dangote Group
The adoption of managed cloud platforms has gained significant traction over the past few years, with more organizations quickly moving to take advantage of a host of shared databases, services, storage, and tools. The critical role cloud has played, especially during the early days of the pandemic in terms of seamlessly shifting entire workforces to remote work, rapidly scaling security to meet new threats, and providing powerful business continuity and disaster recovery services. In effect, the organizational value of managed clouds has been considerably validated as a cornerstone of any successful digital transformation strategy.

 

12:55

Summary & Close

Mark Walker

Associate Vice President, South Africa, IDC
13:00

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General Information

 

Webinar

 

 

Thursday, July 23, 2020

 

 

11:00 AM

 

 

Language
English

Registration Fee
Free of Charge : For End Users (not IT + Consultant companies)

Contact

For More Information, contact: Ryan Matthews - Conference Director (South Africa)

Mobile: +27 79 9399705 | Email: rmatthews@idc.com

Proceedings

To access this content, please enter the password you have received from IDC. If you do not have a password, please contact Ryan Matthews via email, at rmatthews@idc.com.

Knowledge Hub

IDC's Predictions for 4 Pillar Growth on the 3rd Platform

 

3 Ways to Architect Digital Transformation (DX) Within Your Organization

 

Digital Transformation and 3rd Platform Leadership: What You Need to Know

 

Contact Us

Ryan Matthews

Conference Director

Lydia Botha

Senior Sales Manager, IDC South Africa

About IDC

56 Years | 1300 Analysts | 110 Countries

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,300 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading media, data and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com.