White Paper Digital Reliability - Why digital reliability is crucial to the success of your digital business

PREFACE
If an industrial company came to a temporary standstill today because
its ERP system failed and 10,000 pallets could not go out to customers,
it would be annoying and – in a worst-case scenario – cost a lot
of money. If the same company were to own a completely smart factory
in a few years’ time, however, matters would be more complicated.
If sensors stop communicating with each other, robots malfunction
and machinery can no longer be loaded, there is the risk of far more
serious problems – in a fully networked industrial IoT, outages could
threaten the very existence of a company.
Companies are obviously aware of this, but realistic solution models
are still all too rare. A survey commissioned by us among IT and data
protection decision-makers in Germany showed that digital outages
are far from being exceptional occurrences. Half of the companies
surveyed had experienced extended disruptions to business-critical
processes. These resulted in production stoppages and lost revenue.
Technical faults or cyber crime, such as phishing attacks or server
hacks, had temporarily suspended production for a third of the companies.
The higher the level of digitalisation in an organisation, the more its
dependency on technology increases. Service levels of 98 per cent
and more look good on paper, but are pretty ineffective in reality
because the systems simply must no longer fail at all. A look at the
current situation reveals that companies’ digital business processes
are not adequately secured at present.
What is required is a new and contemporary interpretation of
reliability. Availability and security are just two of the fundamental
aspects here. This new reliability also needs to take into account
the fast-paced nature of business. Another important criterion is
user-centredness: each technical function must be easily and fully
accessible for all users.
Digital reliability is thus a holistic concept that safeguards the success
of digital business for companies.
In this white paper, you can find out exactly what we mean by digital
reliability, how it is implemented in practice and what factors are
important for our customers.
I hope you find it informative.
Prof. Frank Schönefeld
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