Sep 19, 2023 SOURCE: BusinessWire

Third Annual IDC Best in Future of Digital Infrastructure Award Winner and Runners-Up Named

International Data Corporation (IDC) today announced The Cigna Group was named the Overall Winner of the IDC Future Enterprise Best in Future of Digital Infrastructure North America Awards for its "Enterprise Cloud Center of Enablement" project.

The IDC Future Enterprise Digital Infrastructure Award showcases how investments in cloud technologies, autonomous infrastructure operations, and collaborative, ubiquitous governance can drive digital transformation and improve business outcomes in North America. This award aims to recognize organizations that successfully invested in digital transformation to foster a digital-first culture and enable digital business innovation across internal teams, ecosystems, and markets.

"The Cigna Group was named the Best in Future of Digital Infrastructure North America Awards overall winner based on the breadth and depth of its efforts to promote consistent enterprise-wide use of public cloud infrastructure while optimizing the total cost of ownership, minimizing tech debt, and consistently automating security and compliance," said Mary Johnston Turner, research vice president, Future of Digital Infrastructure at IDC. "Cigna's experience demonstrates the value of collaborative, ubiquitous governance, FinOps maturity, and comprehensive cloud technology architectures."

In addition to the IDC Best in Future of Digital Infrastructure North America Awards overall winner, Rockline Industries was named first runner-up for its "Project Safeguard" initiative, which enabled the organization to gain the ability to track product quality throughout the manufacturing process and to expedite the time it took to access data for customer complaint investigations. Avery Dennison was named a second runner-up for its "Automated Recovery on the Infrastructure Resiliency" project, which increased use of self-service automation and self-help capabilities across all the organization's digital infrastructure platforms.

The Cigna Group, Rockline Industries, and Avery Dennison will be presented with an award at a virtual award ceremony event this fall. To register for the event and learn more about the 2023 IDC Best in Future of Digital Infrastructure winning initiatives, visit HERE.

Check out IDC's Future of Digital Infrastructure eBook.

IDC’s Future of Digital Infrastructure framework details three major tenets of the practice including cloud-native technologies, autonomous operations, and ubiquitously deployed resources. As businesses continue to pivot to a digital-first economy, investing in the Digital Infrastructure pillars will be vital in reducing operational challenges that come with accelerating cloud adoption spanning across multiple platforms and locations.

More about the Best in Future of Digital Infrastructure Award-Winning Project:

Overall Winner: The Cigna Group, Enterprise Cloud Center of Enablement

Project Details: Over the past 5-plus years, Cigna has built and managed its enterprise cloud to deliver business value and contain cost through:

Calculated and focused adoption of key public cloud functions and services
Meticulous attention to accurate chargeback and financial models
Serving as a trusted broker to enable self-service, but properly governed consumption of public cloud to enable digital first, virtual leading, data driven, and personalized solutions for our clients and customers to change the way people experience healthcare.

This nomination highlights Cigna's FinOps maturity as part of its Enterprise Cloud Center of Enablement.

First Runner Up: Rockline Industries, Project Safeguard

Project Details: As a company, Rockline holistically focuses on improving product quality and traceability. The primary focus for this project was to gain the ability to track product quality throughout the manufacturing process and, specifically, to expedite the time it took to access water data for customer complaints investigations. To do that, Rockline needed to replicate siloed plant FactoryTalk water data into one easily accessible centralized database. Gray Solutions determined that the solution would be built on FactoryTalk Edge Gateway by Rockwell Automation, which created the foundation and infrastructure to bring Internet of Things (IoT) data to a central, cloud-based repository. Gray Solutions also developed analytics and visual tools to enable users to make sense of the data.

To continually achieve stringent water quality standards for its wet wipes, Rockline needed access to water quality data in real time. Centralized data and quality data analytics were the core tenants of the solution provided by Gray Solutions. The solution enables Rockline to identify issues with water quality quickly, pinpoint root cause, and implement a fix. This is important for uptime, reducing wasted materials and maintaining brand reputation.

Second Runner Up: Avery Dennison, Automated Recovery on the Infrastructure Resiliency

Project Details: Avery Dennison and TCS pursued large-scale enterprise automation focused on increasing its human-machine collaboration capacity. The goal was to enhance the adoption of automation from the current 46% to 75% across all platforms (Data Center, Cloud, Site Infrastructure, End point computing, IT and HR Services).

TCS recommended a machine-first approach equipped with analytics tools and artificial intelligence (AI) to address Avery Dennison's specific automation needs with an additional focus for self-service and self-help to transform the employee experience.

With the MFDM framework in place supported by self-help services, the company modernized its operations. Tools such as robotic process automation, modern service management tools, scripting tools, and alerts for native original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) were deployed by TCS to simplify tasks from Level 1 and Level 2 teams to Level 0 (automation).

This led to overall annual cost savings for Avery Dennison, shifting IT services from "IT Cost" to "IT Value." It also increased operational efficiency and datacenter availability, and reduced the downtime for business services, thus improving productivity.

About the Future Enterprise Awards

The world is moving from digital transformation (DX) (as we know it) to Digital First. DX started with transformation from analog to digital. With contextualization, Digital First becomes the next evolution in DX. Digital is a permanent, yet dynamic fixture in this world. Digital First applies to any entity searching for a digital-based capability or enhancement that could improve our lives and desired outcomes. As we anchor ourselves in a digital-first world, one thing is clear: Organizations, private or public, large or small, will need to leverage technologies in an accelerated fashion to thrive. And the ones that can close the new digital gap through the greatest business value impact will become the market leaders of tomorrow. These leaders are the Future Enterprises. To learn more about the Future Enterprise Awards, please visit idcdxawards.com.

To learn more about the Future Enterprise North America Awards please contact Heather Ball at hball@idc.com.

About IDC

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, IT benchmarking and sourcing, 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 tech media, data, and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights.