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

PREFACE If an industrial company came <strong>to</strong> a temporary standstill <strong>to</strong>day because its ERP system failed and 10,000 pallets could not go out <strong>to</strong> cus<strong>to</strong>mers, it would be annoying and – in a worst-case scenario – cost a lot <strong>of</strong> money. If <strong>the</strong> same company were <strong>to</strong> own a completely smart fac<strong>to</strong>ry in a few years’ time, however, matters would be more complicated. If sensors s<strong>to</strong>p communicating with each o<strong>the</strong>r, robots malfunction and machinery can no longer be loaded, <strong>the</strong>re <strong>is</strong> <strong>the</strong> r<strong>is</strong>k <strong>of</strong> far more serious problems – in a fully networked industrial IoT, outages could threaten <strong>the</strong> very ex<strong>is</strong>tence <strong>of</strong> a company. Companies are obviously aware <strong>of</strong> th<strong>is</strong>, but real<strong>is</strong>tic solution models are still all <strong>to</strong>o rare. A survey comm<strong>is</strong>sioned by us among IT and data protection dec<strong>is</strong>ion-makers in Germany showed that <strong>digital</strong> outages are far from being exceptional occurrences. Half <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> companies surveyed had experienced extended d<strong>is</strong>ruptions <strong>to</strong> <strong>business</strong>-critical processes. These resulted in production s<strong>to</strong>ppages and lost revenue. Technical faults or cyber crime, such as ph<strong>is</strong>hing attacks or server hacks, had temporarily suspended production for a third <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> companies. The higher <strong>the</strong> level <strong>of</strong> <strong>digital</strong><strong>is</strong>ation in an organ<strong>is</strong>ation, <strong>the</strong> more its dependency on technology increases. Service levels <strong>of</strong> 98 per cent and more look good on paper, but are pretty ineffective in reality because <strong>the</strong> systems simply must no longer fail at all. A look at <strong>the</strong> current situation reveals that companies’ <strong>digital</strong> <strong>business</strong> processes are not adequately secured at present. What <strong>is</strong> required <strong>is</strong> a new and contemporary interpretation <strong>of</strong> <strong>reliability</strong>. Availability and security are just two <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> fundamental aspects here. Th<strong>is</strong> new <strong>reliability</strong> also needs <strong>to</strong> take in<strong>to</strong> account <strong>the</strong> fast-paced nature <strong>of</strong> <strong>business</strong>. Ano<strong>the</strong>r important criterion <strong>is</strong> user-centredness: each technical function must be easily and fully accessible for all users. <strong>Digital</strong> <strong>reliability</strong> <strong>is</strong> thus a hol<strong>is</strong>tic concept that safeguards <strong>the</strong> <strong>success</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>digital</strong> <strong>business</strong> for companies. In th<strong>is</strong> white paper, you can find out exactly what we mean by <strong>digital</strong> <strong>reliability</strong>, how it <strong>is</strong> implemented in practice and what fac<strong>to</strong>rs are important for our cus<strong>to</strong>mers. I hope you find it informative. Pr<strong>of</strong>. Frank Schönefeld 4 5